By Kristen Entwistle

When I sit in doctor’s offices, waiting (which is fairly often if you’re me), I tend to people-watch. Most of the time, there’s the mom with two kids who she has to take back with her, even though it’s her appointment. She looks frazzled and a little overwhelmed as they lead her back to the room. There’s the teenager who’s here with her mom, and her mom is trying to micromanage everything she writes on the sheet the receptionist hands her. The daughter gets frustrated (I can do it myself!), and quits talking to her mom, finishing the paperwork with a scowl on her face. There’s the older couple in the corner, with the man nodding off while his wife reads a magazine. The receptionists continue clacking away on their keyboards. Then a man walks in, sits down, a look of fear in his eyes. He’s expecting bad news, it seems. A pregnant woman walks in alone, no ring on her finger. I wonder what has brought her here today – herself or her baby.

I’ve spent a significant portion of my life in doctor’s offices, waiting. Perhaps not so patiently, but waiting nonetheless. And I’ve spent much time watching.

And yet I cannot physically help any of these people.

I cannot take away their diabetes or asthma or pain. But I want to, so badly, to tell them that it doesn’t have to be terrible. That good can come from these ‘bad’ things. I’ve seen it.

But the only way that happens is with God.

And so, as I sit here waiting, I pray for these people – sitting here, waiting with me. I pray that if they don’t know Christ, that someone will come into their path to tell them about the love that He has for them. I pray that if they do know Christ, that they would lean on Him in the tough times and the good times, and that they would be a light to those they come in contact with, even in this office today.

And I pray the same for you, even though you aren’t in this office right now.

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

Amen.