The little things

Tonight I volunteered with great trepidation to sing Christmas Carols in our local public hospital.

For one thing, I'm not a fan of hospitals (although I doubt I'm alone in that) and two, I love Christmas Carols, especially when sung in beautiful harmonies... this however was not going to be the case tonight.

So I put in my flashing angel earrings (a secret santa gift from years ago that still brings the joy :) and headed to the hospital with the thought in mind that they might be too sick to care what we sounded like.

I'm now, obviously, typing this following the event and I am really thankful that sometimes we take the time to do little things for others. It really wasn't any hassle to go out tonight and sing to people for a couple of hours, but it did mean a lot to them and their families.

We started in the critical care ward, standing in one place in the middle of the ward, singing songs and wondering what Christmas will be like for the people and family of those in the ward. From there we went to the surgical units, on to orthopedic and finished up in the rehabilitation ward.

Two men and one woman are hovering in my thoughts as I write this, one was a man who looked at me when I said Merry Christmas to him and made the comment as much to himself as to me "Merry Christmas to you to darling" it was said with such an Aussie genuineness that I was really touched. Another man was in the rehabilitation ward after a car/motorbike accident. He was lying on his bed, with his wife next to him, holding her hand and giving us the thumbs up and attempting to sing - he requested Away in a Manger and as we sung it had tears streaming down his face and his wife struggled to hold hers back. He kept saying when we'd finished - God bless you, God bless you... our simple song touched his heart and broken mind and body in a way that I can't imagine, and as I write this I ask that your prayers and good will be with him and his wife. The third was a lady, also in the rehab ward who cried as we sang and requested more songs than anyone else - as she was wheeled away the nurse mentioned to her "they really are doing God's work".

Sometimes we make ministry more complicated then it needs to be. Tonight we ministered to people that needed it, and it was as simple as taking the time to say "yes, I'll come and sing".