Why am I here?

Last night I visited Aspen Medical Center with Ty, Kaleb, and Robert (Bobby Lee). Every Tuesday a few students try to get together to talk/sing to the residents of this nursing home and play Bingo with them. Last year (for various reasons) I was fairly sporadic about going to these. I'm going to try to be better this year about going to things like this because every time I do I am simultaneously sobered and blessed.

I walked around trying to engage in conversation with different residents. I found I struggled talking to them by myself (if you know me, you might be aware that I am not the greatest conversationalist; especially with people who have no interest in conversation). I saw my classmate Robin Bowe talking to a lady named Dorothy at the Bingo table, so I walked over and tried to see if I could add anything to the conversation. Dorothy was more sharp than many of the other residents. After a while though I could tell that something was wrong. After talking to us for a while she said "I don't know how I got here. I don't know how I ended up here." Robin tried to distract her by pretending to misunderstand her and said that, personally, she got there by car. I got there by bike, so I added this. The distraction worked for a while, we moved to another topic. 

Then she asked "why am I here?" I couldn't answer her, not what she's really asking. I am just 2o years old. So I said that we wonder the same thing about college. What did we get ourselves into? How did we end up so far from home? So that's what we talked about. It at least distracted her. If I were more on my feet, I could have given her a biblical exhortation and perhaps some comfort. Next time perhaps.

Please pray for Dorothy and all nursing home residents. In the same way she does not understand why she is in a nursing home, pray that she has a peace that she does not understand.