The great news of this week was the arrival of the Covid vaccine.  Praise God!  This news was I’m sure akin to hearing the end of WWII was near.  I heard a military general say this week, it was D-Day for Covid.  He continued with the explanation D-Day did not mean the end of WWII, it meant the beginning of the end.  We can only pray the same is true for the pandemic. 

This led me to think about a news story I recently watched about COVID in South Dakota.  This was of interest to me as that is where I was born and raised.  In it they interviewed as 88-year-old-man lying in a hospital bed, his face partially obscured by tubes and wires.  The camera went in for a close-up, highlighting wet streaks running down the deep creases of his creeks, his mouth open as he struggled to breathe.  My heart ached for this man’s suffering.

When he spoke, his voice was weak, his words nearly inaudible: “It’s been a good life.  These tears in my eyes are happy tears.”

Laying in a hospital bed, laboring to bring breath into his chest, he was gazing back over a long life well-lived and he was thankful.  “My father told me, you know, everyone’s got troubles, you’ve got to help if you can, and I’ve done that all my life.”

The camera cut to a shot of the nurse’s gloved hand holding his bent and gnarled one.  “And now they’re taking good care of you?”  the journalist asked who was interviewing him. 

“They are, they are, thank God,” the man whispered in reply.

In my seventh decade in life, I know what I could not as a child: prayer does not guarantee protection from grief and tragedy.  Instead, prayer offers us wellsprings of grace to endure the inevitable hardships of life.  Today, as I breathe in and I breathe out, it is a prayer.  I am reminded of the man weeping tears of joy even in the midst of great suffering, the answer to his prayers, the discovery that in his prayers, the discovery that in his hour of greatest need he found himself surrounded by love.  It seemed this might have been his D-Day, the beginning of the end of his life.  I have no way of knowing whether he passed from this earth of whether he may still be alive and receive the long-awaited vaccine.  Whatever the outcome, he was ready to pass to his Heavenly home and was content.  I hope we can all feel God’s love the way this grateful, yet suffering man did and rejoice in this knowledge God loves us unconditionally and is waiting for us with open arms, whenever our D-Day comes.

Patty