Pandemic Parable: Love-Infused Pumpkin Bread
There is a wonderful smell of cinnamon permeating my house. It smells like Christmas. That is because I’m baking two loaves of my famous pumpkin bread, that I only usually make around the holidays, to take into the hospital tomorrow.
Let me explain.
As most of you know I am working as a Resident Chaplain at my local hospital until the end of August (when I return to being a full time Storyteller.) The hospital is on high alert, ready and prepared for an influx of virus patients. There is a thick miasma of tension in the air mingled with fear.
Women in the birthing center want to push their baby out and leave the premises as soon as possible. The big hospital in the next county has banned most visitors and people are wondering if it will happen with us. One woman didn’t want to leave her elderly mother’s room and get fresh clothes in her car in case she wasn’t allowed back in again. Whereas another was incredibly relieved she could see her mother, because she wasn’t allowed to visit her in the nursing home where she usually resides. However she said she was praying furiously that their joyful reunion wouldn’t be cut short.
New, necessary restrictions are put in place everyday and everyone is wondering what will be next.
I arrived in this morning, after a weekend away, to discover that one of the sections I am assigned to on the third floor has become an isolation wing. It has been effectively sealed off with minimum admittance permitted. I’m not allowed to enter. If a patient wants a chaplain I have to visit with them via a specially set up iPad or over the phone.
The nursing staff working there have volunteered to be on this wing. They will alternate with others on the Third Floor who are waiting to relieve them. (God bless them all!)
Although there are no active cases of Covid-19 in the hospital yet, quite a few people on that wing are awaiting test results. I could feel tension and fear seeping through those closed doors that seemed to cut of the people behind it from the rest of the world.
So there I was this morning, looking at a “Do Not Pass - Isolation” sign barring my way into a section that I usually happily trot through daily, when I had an idea. An idea that wouldn’t go away.
I should make some pumpkin bread for the medical staff behind those doors.
Then I should ask the Lord to fill it with all the peace, love, and joy that flows in abundance at Christmas, when I usually make the treat. I should, (and do) firmly believe the Good Book when it says that His perfect love casts out fear. And trust that when the medical staff eat it, somehow His love goes deep into their insides and girds up their loins for whatever lies ahead.
It might be fanciful to some of you, but I’m believing it will work.
Lord somehow, may two loaves of pumpkin bread bring Your comfort and love to one section of the hospital that sorely needs your miraculous love, strength, and grace. Amen!
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