It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today is a glorious day!

This morning, for church, I went to the Utah State Mental Hospital and escorted patients to their meeting. I volunteered to do this last week and hadn't thought much about it in preparation. When I got to the hospital it hit me what I was actually doing, and for a minute I was really nervous. As soon as we got to see the patients though, that fear melted away and the only negative thing that I felt was a little awkwardness.

We walked with them up to the chapel and when we entered, the man I was walking closest to went straight to the back row on the far side. I hung back for a minute deciding whether or not to go sit next to him. I would need to slide past him on the row which could present an awkward situation. I hummed and hawed for a minute and discussed in hushed nervous whispers with another first time volunteer about what we should do. Then a though crossed my mind;

"What would Jesus do?"

He would,"succor the ^bweak, lift up the hands which hang down, and ^cstrengthen the ^dfeeble knees."

So I walked over and asked the man if I could sit next to him. He accepted and scooted so that I could slide by and sit beside him. During the first hymn of the meeting I held the book out between us, not knowing how he would respond, and he took the other side. While he struggled with communication (most of his words were mostly grunts) he was trying to sing along and I could understand most of what he sang. Between the songs he struggled to stay awake, readjusting occasionally and burping. During the second hymn he sang the whole first line of "I Stand All Amazed."

"I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me"

Words cannot even describe how the Spirit poured over me. It was just like we were told before we walked down to escort them, "Their minds are sick, but their spirits are not"

After we walked the patients back to their rooms they stood and shook our hands, smiling and saying our names in a farewell. They cared so much about us and they were so grateful.

It was an incredible experience.

Note from the Author: This was supposed to be posted yesterday 3/13/2011.