Faith Matters: The courage to give thanks

The manager of the flats where June lives phoned me to say they had called an ambulance for her.

June lives independently in flats for the over-70s. I have power for attorney for her, and her welfare.

The pain in her knee was agonising. She could not get out of bed. It took 14 hours for the ambulance to get June to hospital and on arrival she spent 12 hours in a corridor.

I watched the indignity of her attempts to follow the physiotherapist’s guidance on how to stand up. The episode with the bed pan was even worse for a woman well on in her 90s. Eventually a bay became available and she had a little privacy.

Out of sheer frustration June forced herself that night to do the exercises that the physiotherapist had recommended. The pain was terrible but she persisted through the small hours, into the morning.

The combination of her determination and a regime of painkiller medication did the trick. June returned to her flat, with a new walking frame and some additional support from carers.

When we spoke, she said, ‘I can’t thank the hospital enough for what they did.’

June could have chosen to tell everyone how long she waited for an ambulance, and how noisy and undignified it was to be in a line of beds on a corridor. Instead, she focused on the kindness of nurses who were doing their best and the amazing benefits of medication that relieves pain and restores us to our right minds.

In a busy, noisy world it is easy to hit on what goes wrong. But giving thanks is what heroes, like June, and saints, like Richard of Chichester, do.His last words were, ‘Thanks be to thee, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good things you have given me.’

We could transform the world if more of us had the determination and courage to give thanks.

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