The Young Woman

So, I'm at Mayo Clinic. I've been coming here since I was 18 for a skin condition called eczema. I'm usually hospitalized and bandaged around the clock. During the last two years my face and arms get real red and burn every day. I came to find out about that. I often feel ashamed of the redness.

Yesterday, as I sat reading in the beautiful Gonda building of the Mayo Clinic, a woman sat down in the seat in front of me. My face was it's usual red, but her face was completely covered with large swollen and wounded patches of red skin. And she was tired from walking...she needed to rest. I don't know what her condition was, but it seemed intense. And then the most amazing thing happened. She noticed that the other woman sitting near us in the wheelchair had a bottle of diet coke laying on the floor in front of her...not able to reach it. The lady asked who the coke belonged to. The woman in the wheelchair said it was hers but that when her husband got back, he would pick it up for her. Then the sick woman with the wounded face gave me a look that said to get up off my butt and pick that coke up for her. I did as I was directed.

The woman with the red face then went to sleep for 15 minutes before her next appointment and then got up to leave. After she left, I wept. You always see someone worse than you when you are here! And in her condition she was concerned about the other person. I cried for her. I cried because God was clearly speaking to me about something.

She is a champion who is on a very long marathon road. Aren't we all.