In order to tell you about this day, I have to go back about 36 hours to Sunday morning. It’s where the thread of this story began.

I got up at about 6, walked the dogs as usual and then started the morning out with prayer and some house work. Mom and Amanda got up, so I made the coffee and sat down to breakfast with them.

“What are you guys doing today?” Mom asked

“It’s Sunday. So we are goin to church.” Amanda returned.

Without missing a beat Mom replied, “Oh I meant to tell you, I got a call. Church is cancelled.”

Amanda and I smiled at each other and then I asked, “Oh? Who called?”

“God.” Mom returned with a dry smile.

Amanda and I laughed as I said, “Well I guess He would know.”

Mom has always had a sharp wit. It is sometimes even more spectacular now as her filters are going away. Church time came. We went to church without heeding God’s call. That always spells trouble. Trouble this day came at 5:30. My phone rang. It was one of our elderly ladies from church,

“It’s your bad penney.” she said. Then she went into a rambling explanation of how she was somewhere ,and her car wouldn’t work, and they said it was fixed now, and she supposed she could find her way home.

“Where are you________?” I asked her.

She handed the phone to a lady who explained that she was at a market in Pennacook NH, about an hour and a half from us.

Needless to say we were on the road in a matter of minutes. Our lady had gotten herself really lost. My GPS took us through deep woods and onto dirt roads until we found the little market where our friend was stranded.

When we arrived the sun was setting. Our friend was tired, scared and very confused. Her car was no longer driveable as she had hit either a really tall curve or a very deep pothole with it. The tow truck driver was pretty sure she had bent the rim and maybe even the frame of her car.

We got the car towed and drove our friend home. It turned out we had arrived just in time as our ride home was overshadowed by beautiful but rather frightening thunder storms, with lots of lightning and even more rain. I shudder to think about this dear lady caught outside in that!

Anyway we got her settled in for the night and then went home to close up The Vicarage.

This morning I set about making some calls to social services in my friend’s town. She is a widow without family and so we are going to build a safety net around her now to help her at home with quality of life.

At noon I took Mom to a Drs. appointment. The Dr. wants Mom to have lots of tests. Mom wants to have none. The Dr. wants to prolong Mom’s life. Mom thinks that the Dr. is barking mad. For me once again this is all about quality not quantity of life.

Both of these ladies are in their mid eighties. Both of them are in failing health. Both are looking forward to their home going. Neither wants to do anything to lengthen their days. For myself I think now is a season of ministry to both of them. It’s not about the number of days. It’s about the quality of those days. I hope I can make the time they have left here on Earth a little more comfortable and a little more pleasant.