This pool as well as a email that I shared with a friend in the last few days as well as all the times that I now pray with people right then and there... reminds me of the young girl that has changed me to the core of my being. I appologize to all those that have heard this story before, but I think that it is one that cannot be told or heard too often! We were up in St Paul and the stress and anxiety of trying to find out what had happened so suddenly to our healthy strapping 6'4" son's brain was getting to all of us as we gathered day after day at his bedside at St Joseph's hospital. The brand new gorgeous building was a far cry from the old hospital where I did my student nursing while a student at St Catherines in 1971-74... it was even old then! One day the kids were going to be with John and I thought that I would like to take a day to make some food for the family and get out for a while... I also thought that I would pick up a pool for the kids to enjoy on these hot summer days in the back yard of my daughter's home in St Paul.... I first went to a Wallmart in the Snelling street area of St Paul and found that I had to get a blow up kind of pool... being a ways into summer already. So I got a fancy one with two pools, a dolphin that you can hook the hose to and squirts water and two blow up palm trees! Then I went to Cub foods and wadered around picking up the things I needed for a big batch of lagsagna and barbeque... As I was checking out the check out lady - a black woman about my age asked me how I was doing today... I found that I couldn't answer with the usual; "Fine." I told her that I wasn't doing that well... She kindly pointed out that at least I could afford groceries... unlike the man in the line ahead of me, who had to buy his sparce amount of things with food stamps. She was right and I told her so, and then I told her that my 20 year old son had a tumor in his brain and would she please pray for him. She gave me a shocked look and assured me that she would. Just at that moment a young girl about the age of my girls, in the next lane... asked me if I was from Marshall. "I was in school with your daughters... I thought that I recognized you from Marshall." I assured her that I was. She intoduced herself and then asked me if she had heard me say that my son had cancer, and if it was alright for her to pray for him and us right there in the Cub Food stores.... Kind of taken aback... I said "sure"... So she lauched into a prayer... I do not remember the words but it was asking for healing for John and support for his family... I looked up to see my lady cashier with her head bowed and the man ahead of me that had been bagging his groceries also... we were drawn together at that moment in a very deep and powerful way! It changed me and made me realize that no longer am I going to say that I will pray for them... I will pray for them at that exact time! It has happened in the street or face to face with people... mostly in emails and letters at this point. And yes there are times that I kick myself because I was too chicken or just didn't think of it.... I am still growing in the power of how this truth touched me and changed me and brought these 4 people together in this moment of time that up til then had been like a bad dream to me that I needed and so much wanted to wake up from! "Someone pinch me!" Now on to the last group of pictures for today...
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