Just Pray

There is a moment, just before surgery, when a pastor can pray with a parishioner. I have no idea how many times, easily hundreds,  when I’ve stood next to someone right before they underwent surgery. There is something about that moment just before the anesthesiologist administers the “happy medicine” and the attendants wheel the patient to the surgery area. That’s when the Pastor can tenderly grasp the patient’s hand and pray. Whether the Pastor has been there for hours or minutes, it’s time. I privately refer to it as “the moment.”

At that moment, all that’s necessary is a simple, heartfelt prayer. 

A man told my wife and me about being in the hospital for surgery. It was to be a complicated, extensive surgery. Someone on the hospital staff was wise enough to ask if he would like someone to pray and if he cared for a chaplain to be there. “Yes, I would like that,” he said. It so happened that the person who arrived was the assistant to the to the assistant to the assistant to the chaplain. Having asked the patient what religion he preferred and narrowed the world religions to Christianity, the chaplain then asked what denomination. “Episcopal,” our friend, the patient said. Then the chaplain began fumbling through prayer books for appropriate prayers from that faith tradition, repeatedly mumbling to himself, “No, that one won’t work.” At this point, our friend began chuckling as he finished telling us his story: “I wanted to tell him: ‘hey buddy, just pray.'” 

In “the moment,” nothing else matters. Just pray.

Several weeks ago, it was “the moment.” Only this time, I was the patient. 

Pre-Op is a busy, bustling place. Having exchanged your street clothes for a gown (struggling to tie it in the back), put on an ill-fitting surgical cap, and answered a hundred and thirteen questions from the nurses, the anesthesiologist, and the surgeon, it abruptly becomes still for a brief minute. It’s just you and your little cubicle. Maybe you wonder how long, or what’s next, or will you be okay.

And then, it’s time. A conclave of people seem to reemerge at once.

Then, “the moment” arrives. 

At this point, my prayer came, but not from anyone I would have expected. It wasn’t an ordained minister or a trained chaplain who stepped forward for me in “the moment.” It was my wife. She boldly stood up and took charge: “I’d like to pray for my husband before you take him back.” She was like the Chief Hospital Chaplain. Before anyone could object, she took my hand and started praying. I can’t recall the exact words. I remember her leaning over me in my rather helpless state as she interceded to God the Father, asking the Lord to guide the surgeon’s hand, the anesthesiologist, and all the attending nurses. She prayed that I would wake up and do well in recovery. Then she delivered me into God’s watchful, caring hands.

At that moment, my wife became my intercessor, my Pastor. 

And then she was done: “Amen.”

As they wheeled me toward surgery, the attendants gently teased me that the medicine would soon take effect, and I would not remember the conversation we were then having.

And they were right. 

As the lights slowly faded and my consciousness slipped away, one thing I would remember was my wife boldly stepping through the medical staff, taking my hand, and in her confident and calm voice, doing something simple and enormously profound. 

She prayed.