It was in a hospital at midnight that a bloodied young man with a stab wound broke my heart. And also opened it. 

I paused at the door to his ER room. Seeing on the floor, and on his chest, bloody gauzes, this middle-aged white Lutheran female made quick, narrow-minded assumptions. I felt a huge gap between the two of us. Here was a young Hispanic man from Houston’s Southwest with a stab wound. “What in the world was I doing here? Or could I do here?”  A nurse seemed to confirm that; she was saying to him, “YOU don’t want to see a chaplain, do you?”

Perhaps it was her inflection or her assumption, perhaps it was my call to care for the sick, or perhaps it was just instinct that led me to his side. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He simply responded, “Will you just let my mom know that I’m going to be OK?” And with that, all the barriers that I had put up came crashing down. His race, his age, his situation — none of that mattered. What mattered was that he was someone’s son and he was concerned about his mother.

And then I knew that it was the Holy Spirit that led me to his side. But not just for him, but for me, too.