By Marianne Wood

About a year ago, on my way home from Philadelphia bearing a freshly broken wrist encased in a huge splint, I sat down at a bar in the wrong terminal. The menu had attracted me, not the hope of wine or spirits, but the truth I found in this experience is worth telling: God sees us. He made us out of dust. We return to it under his loving gaze.

The backstory. 

On February 1, 2023, I headed to the corner of my daughter’s street. Once there, I opened the Uber app on my phone to order a ride to the emergency department at the University of Pennsylvania’s hospital, commonly called HUP. It had snowed that morning, but I did not suspect any slick spots since the streets looked great. Nevertheless, I slipped and landed hard. When I looked up, I saw a man peering down at me, offering to help me stand. “I saw you fall,” he said. The concerned look in his eyes worried me more than the searing pain rising in my arm. “I’m going to see my daughter in the emergency department. I guess I’m headed in the right direction,” I told him. 

I made it to my ride’s pick-up point, and after a long, chilly wait, the car arrived. Several minutes later, I entered the familiar emergency waiting room at HUP. I had been there several times, including the day prior, because my daughter had metastatic breast cancer, and complications can accompany stage IV. I stopped at the reception desk and asked to see her since she had stayed overnight in their facility. Again, I noticed that look of concern. And I heard the following question: “Perhaps you’d like someone to look at your arm?” I answered, “I think that’s a good idea.” Fortunately, I was allowed to go back and see my daughter after a nurse took my vitals and added me to the queue. 

As the morning wore on, I snagged short visits with my beloved 37-year-old child as I was taken in and out for treatment. After my x-rays were read, a lovely resident with piercing blue eyes and curly blonde hair, who reminded me of my primary care provider at home, looked at me and said, “Mrs. Wood, you have a broken wrist.” (“You crunched it,” a retired physician friend told me after I shared an x-ray.) But at the top of my radiology report was a term I had to look up: “osseous demineralization.” It means that my body is turning back to dust. I’ve lost minerals from my bones, making them more prone to fracture. 

There are other details I could share about the fantastic new Penn hospital and moments of humor when my daughter’s husband played excerpts from a David Sedaris book he listens to on his commute, but I don’t want to cloud my point. So here it is: God sees us even when walking through deep valleys. He lets us know by scattering treats along our path.

Back to the bar story.

So, two days after badly breaking my wrist, heading home to Texas with just one bag over my shoulder, I ended up in a bar in the wrong terminal, sitting next to a beautiful woman whom I assumed would not want to look at me: a bedraggled lump of humanity. But instead, God saw me through the eyes of a compassionate Homeland Security nurse. This part requires some details to give you a fuller glimpse into this remarkable appearance of God’s grace.

After walking into the bar with a healthful vibe, I awkwardly maneuvered to an empty chair and asked for a menu. The establishment was busy, and a friendly hostess bustled about singlehandedly covering many roles. The patron next to me turned and said: “that looks fresh,” and then she asked my story. Unhurried and far from nervous like many airline travelers, she took time, leading me through a short narration of my physical and emotional wounds with gentle questions. At the end of our conversation, she asked my daughter’s name so she could pray for her, and she paid for my lunch, which included ginger ale. “No beer,” she’d asked. “No, I’ve got a dose of Tramadol to take soon for my next leg of this trip–the two-hour part.” I felt tears well up as she paid our tickets, said goodbye, and moved on to her gate.

An insightful friend recently pointed out that airline terminals provide a great example of liminal time. As I’ve pondered this concept, I’ve come to understand that I was definitely in that beautiful “no longer and not yet, between” kind of space and time. It conjures up a bit of science-fiction movie footage. It was a spectacularly weird day in a strange environment heightened by pain and general suffering. But still, God saw me. Beaten and dusty, He kept me in His space and saw me home. Yes, I did finally figure out which terminal led there. Thanks be to God.

Marianne Wood works as an editorial assistant and researcher for Bill Wright