Church in the Health Department

By: JANA GREENE

So tonight, I have wicked bad painsomnia. That’s (obviously) when you are in too much pain to sleep. In the past couple of weeks, I got some bad news, health-wise. It’s been intense. So I decided to share a little story with my readers, because I can’t sleep and maybe you can’t too. Or maybe in this hostile, uber-political, divisive world climate, you need an uplifting human interest story. I know I do.

Last week, I had to get my second Covid vaccine, and had to go two counties over to get it.

The town I went to has a small little Health Department. They take you in a room and give you the shot, and then they take you to another waiting room, where you are required to wait 20 minutes to make sure you don’t have an allergic reaction. You are shuffled into a large room with other people who are also doing their 20 minutes.

The others were strangers to me, of course. About 10 people total in this space. Two of them were having a “private” conversation behind me ( you couldn’t miss it – they were on the loud side, and it was silent otherwise.) The exchange turned to God, and miracles, and answered prayers.

Where I was sitting, I shot my own hand up to the sky. Just couldn’t help it. I felt the Spirit in the room and it only seemed right to acknowledge it. I don’t know if it was years of Pentecostal churching or what, but I couldn’t control my hands. They just raised. And behind me, a torrent of hollering and praising began, until several ladies joined in.

It was such a beautiful thing. I miss that about corporate worship. Finally, being ever-awkward, I simply stated, “God is GOOD!” To which a glorious, unanimous refrain came from every mouth in the room: “ALL THE TIME. “After a minute solid, the love in that room was palpable.

We were not denominations, or affiliations. Ages and races. Republicans and Democrats. Just a bunch of women with sore arms managing to raise them anyway to give God the glory for low-key miracles and ordinary, answered prayers. And I think that’s what Heaven will be like.

God is good ALL THE TIME. Even when our organs are failing and our hearts are breaking. I’m also convinced that a group of strangers finding out that they are actually “family” and sharing it together in a dingy, gray government building is LOVE.

And isn’t love good ALL THE TIME? I think so. ❤