[...] I felt a persistent tugging in my heart, which I tried to ignore. My instinct in such situations is to try to “fix” things – I hate seeing people in pain or emotional distress, but I didn’t know this woman or what her situation was. It was none of my business. But whenever I looked over, there she would be – tears streaming down her face, her hands clenched in her lap, her head trembling ever so slightly. Perhaps she herself is ill? I wondered. It looked like Parkinsons, that little tremble.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it another minute – that tugging just wouldn’t leave me be. I got up, and walked over to this complete stranger, wending my way through the family members around her, and I leaned over and took her hand. “You don’t know me,” I said, “and I have no idea what your circumstances are. But God knows what you’re going through, and I am just feeling led to come over here and offer to pray with you. Would that be OK?” She raised her head and looked at me with such hope in her face that I almost lost it right there. She said, “Oh yes, please. I just can’t pray myself right now, I am too upset.” And the woman seated next to her, whom I later learned was her sister-in-law, clasped her hands over mine with a grateful smile. As I knelt down in front of her, as her family gathered round us, she told me about her husband – a minister for many years. He had come in for surgery to remove a benign tumor from one side of his brain. The surgery was dangerous, she said, but everyone had expected that once he got past it, everything would be OK. Now the doctors were telling her that the tumor was very large and not benign, and something about it told them it had originated somewhere else – metastized from another site the doctors hadn’t found yet. It was very bad news. [...]