Is This My Neighbor?

Lin Snavely
There are lessons our Father wants us to learn. This was mine. Martha Wilson knew Nancy only in passing, but when she saw that Nancy,72, had become physically weak and unkempt, she sprang into action. She enlisted Christine Miller and me to help clean Nancy’s apartment, get her food and line up social services. Nancy was in trouble…and we were too late. Within a few weeks, Martha called emergency services to take Nancy to Swedish Hospital. She died there a month later.

Was it all just a waste? No. I saw Jesus’ hand in Nancy’s last days. Without Martha’s desire to serve, Nancy would have died horribly and alone in that apartment. Instead, she was cared for and safe at Swedish. An estranged sister in California got to see Nancy one last time because she was the contact Nancy gave us to complete a Meals on Wheels application. Residents in Nancy’s building (Alaska House in the Junction) commented on the care “church people” gave someone they barely knew. And I learned, after hazmat cleaning Nancy’s smelly apartment and pondering how far I had to take the whole biblical “neighbor” thing, that Jesus will clearly remind you, “I did much more for you.”
Posted in