The old woman and Gertie

Gertie had beliefs. No one wished to challenge them because doing so made her defensive. She could rationalize and expound on the reasons for adopting her positions. Her friends never wished her causes to enter conversation. If discussion waded into them, her friends responded, “Whatever.”  Each sought to avoid controversy because if an opposing thought was offered, Gertie dug in. The thing was, Gertie was a Christian. She worked tirelessly in her church, doing all the good she could. She tried to make the world a better place and approached doing so with all the cost/benefit analysis to prove her beliefs. There was little room in Gertie’s mind to change what experience taught her. She went about her days confident she was right. Then one day, Gertie had a car accident. She ended up in the hospital with multiple fractures in her leg. Gertie’s finances were limited, and her insurance would not pay for a private room. She shared a room in the hospital with an older woman who knew her time was near. Gertie greeted her roommate with a kind hello and the usual small talk which led to the expected question, “why are you here?” The woman told Gertie she was dying. Feeling sympathy, Gertie said she had worked as a hospice volunteer and offered her roommate heartfelt words and prayer. The old woman sensed from Gertie’s tone an anxiety, a rehearsed imitation of sincerity lacking just that. Gertie never thought deeper than her words, only what she said and never what she communicated. The old woman began to tell Gertie about her life, raising four children, her community involvement with foster care, getting out the vote in elections, encouraging her church to rally around the common causes of her time. She remembered a time when God called her to the mission field but declined because she was too busy making her community a better place. She also told Gertie about losing her husband to a heart attack, about her oldest child’s death from consumption. Then, the old woman said, “As I die, I see the horizon before me and how I wasted time. You see, I believed a certain way, followed where those beliefs took me, measured costs and pursued ends. Dying, I never realized following God did not involve pros and cons or consequences, the means and ends to the result I wanted, results considered to be the best good I could envision, those if-then reasons clogging my mind. He did not ask me to take sides when my beliefs did just that, projected an identity I chose that closed me to loving those who did not agree. He asked me to follow Him without weighing the consequences, to trust Him when He called. Silence followed. Night fell. The two slept. When Gertie woke, the old woman was gone. The nurse came in and Gertie asked, “Did the woman with me die last night?” The nurse responded, “There was no one else in this room with you. You have been the only one.” Then, light entered Gertie’s heart.