Unexpected places

I’ve had a different week this week. Last week I had a call from the Head Chaplain at East Surrey asking if I could help out by going in on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. The hospital is becoming busy again wit the rising number of infections from the virus, and some staff are on holiday! So, wanting to do my bit to help, I agreed. It was a bit of a shock when I got up at 5.30am so I could be at the hospital by 6.50am to pray with the Emergency Department and ICU team before they began their shifts. But very worth it. I take my hat off to those who do it regularly. The rest of my day was spent visiting the wards. I meet some lovely people on the wards, both patients and staff. I meet some people who are looking forward to going home soon. I meet some people who know they are dying. I have some lovely conversations. I have some very challenging conversations. I have some conversations where I can’t get a words in edgeways. I have some conversation where I’m the only one speaking. I have some very short conversations. I have some very long conversations. I have some conversations where I have no idea what I’m being told and I have to make a guess and hope I’ve got it vaguely right. I have some conversations people don’t want to have, but know they must have. I have some conversations when I’m left wondering what it was all about. I have some conversations that challenge me to the core. I have some conversations that are uplifting. And sometimes I find God in unexpected conversations. Like yesterday. I had been asked to visit a patient with psychiatric problems. I read Psalm 121 and when I’d finished she asked me to read it again! As I left that bed, the person in the bed next to her approached me and asked if she could talk with me. “Of course, that’s what I’m here for!” And for the next twenty five minutes I had a conversation I rarely even have in church: how do you sustain faith when life is rubbish? Does God plan every detail of life? How do you know if God is the one guiding you? Isn’t following God just altruism? What is faith? How can you have faith? Suddenly, on a ward in East Surrey hospital, I was having a deep and profound conversation with a young lady who just wanted to talk! About God. It was unexpected. But then God is present in unexpected places. That’s the truth of the baby in a manger isn’t it? Maybe we’re finding it hard to see God right now with everything that’s going on. Maybe we’re finding it hard, at the beginning of a new year, to think that God will be present. It strikes me, as I reflect on that hospital visit, that in 2021 God might be present in unexpected places. And maybe, just maybe he’s got, pencilled in on his 2021 calendar: “Meet Ian…in that unexpected place!” Maybe he’s pencilled you in too. What if I don’t turn up? What if you don’t? God it seems is in the habit of turning up in the most unexpected of places. It’s what he does. I’m hoping I’ll be ready when he meets me there in 2021. And you?