A Puzzler

I get paid to do this?

I visit a certain elderly woman on our hospice services weekly. She is frail elderly and lives alone. Her mind is never at rest. She worries about lots of things, and worries about worrying.

A visitor brought her a puzzle and challenged her to finish it in a week, "and I don't want to hear that you had help!" She said the visitor thinks it will keep her mind off of her illness and prevent her from becoming depressed.

She balked. I encouraged. She made excuses. I said I'd just get the 500 puzzle pieces out of the box for her and laid on the table face up. She consented to that.

And she wobbled over and stood a few seconds watching me. And then she sat and watched me for a few minutes. Soon we were both picking at pieces trying to find matches with her muttering all the while, "I never had the patience for these things" and "this is making my hands cramp up."

It led into a wonderful conversation about her life and the hard worker she has always been and how she can't remember if she ever did anything to relax. Her mind never rests.

But it did for those 15 or so minutes while we chatted and worked on the puzzle.

As did mine.

It reminded me of a conversation I had earlier in the day with another woman about Psalm 46:10.....Be still and know that I am God.

Many years ago another woman I met through hospice made a cross stitch for me that still sits on my windowsill in my living room. It is a meditation of Psalm 46:10. Here is what it says:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

I was "being" with the woman and her puzzle today. And it felt right. There was no where else that I should have been at that moment.

To be or not to be. Is that the question? No. It is the choice.