You Refresh My Soul

I noticed her as we started singing our last song together. “How Great Thou Art.”

She was crying.

A lot.

At almost every verse from the song, I saw her bring her hand shakily up to her face to wipe away tears – dabbing the teardrops away with a crumpled-up Kleenex she kept up the sleeve of her blouse.

Then she’d look upwards and sing for a few moments, before having to reach for her Kleenex again as more tears fell.

She didn’t look like she was sad or in any kind of pain or emotional distress, so I closed my eyes and tried to focus on singing.

But every time I opened my eyes again, as we moved from verse to verse in the song, I happened to see her. She sat there, her head upturned with a gentle smile on her tear-filled face.

The song ended, and the room fell silent.

There were only three of us today, which was strange because we normally get around 10 people in our mini services.

Of those three people, one had fallen peacefully to sleep halfway through our singing time. The second lady just enjoyed the music, rarely singing. She is far too shy.

It was the third lady, the one who was crying all the way through our last song, who spoke up as the music faded and we sat together peacefully – enjoying the sunshine as it streamed in through the large window of the lounge where we were seated.

“Thank you.” she said. “That was just beautiful.”

I leaned forward a little in my seat.

“I noticed that you were crying as we sang. Are you feeling sad?” I asked.

She smiled that same smile she had during the song and shook her head, and suddenly started crying again.

“I’m sorry.”

She brought the Kleenex out again.

“I’m in my nineties.” she said. “I’ve been married two times. I lost my first husband when he was very young. Our children were very young. That was such a hard time! I met the man who became my second husband many years later, and we’ve been together for so many years. I’m crying because as we sang today, I was just remembering all the years….so many years of my life where I have seen God’s faithfulness. So many times.”

She started crying again.

I felt my heart welling up too.

I am at least half this dear woman’s age, but I too can look back over my life and see so many times where God has been faithful to me and to my family.

There has never been a time where He has not been there. Not one.

There have been many times I’ve not understood what the heck was going on in my life, and there have been times where I’ve found it hard to see Him there with me, but as my friend, I can not look back and find a time when He wasn’t there.

I shared this with her and she smiled a huge smile.

“You know, I’m most thankful today because I’ve finally been united with my husband again. He moved in next door to me here just the other day. I’m so happy!”

Then I remembered an e-mail that had been shared by our social work team a few days ago. In the e-mail, there was a picture of a lady, one of our residents, in a lovely dress bending over her newly arrived husband who was laying in one of our beds. She was just about to give him a kiss on the forehead – and on her face was the biggest smile.

The e-mail had stated that she had worn this special dress because it was her husband’s favourite. When I had seen the picture that day, I smiled. What a lovely moment!

Today I suddenly realized that I was talking to the lady from the picture!

“I’m just so thankful!”

My friend couldn’t stop repeating it for a few moments, and then we sat together quietly.

“Please Refresh Our Souls.”

It wasn’t until later on in the day, when I was filling out my end of shift report, that I remembered how I had started our hymn sing that morning.

I read Psalm 23 to my mini congregation of three, and took some time to talk about verse 3 in particular:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.

He refreshes my soul.

After we read that verse and talked about it, we paused and prayed. I asked for God’s refreshing for our souls that day as we spent time in worship together.

I didn’t connect the dots until after.

Our souls were refreshed this morning!

I am so thankful.