Responding to God's Call by Richard Lauzon

Below is an email I received from Richard Lauzon who is a part of our St. Julian's community.  He allowed me to use it as a blog post as an example of responding to a "call" by God into a particular ministry...his willingness to respond resulted in blessing him and the one he went to serve.  Thanks for sharing, Richard, and hope all enjoy.

Peace,

Miles+

Miles,

I wrote this last week after the passing of my friend. I thought it went with your sermon today. If I had not said yes to this call I would have missed out on meeting someone and becoming friends. I have been told that it is sad. See what you think and use it if you want.

Richard

My Hospice Volunteer Experience

I was asked to be a volunteer for Texas Home Health Hospice for a patient they had and I said yes. They told me that he wanted someone that could play chess with him. So on my first day visiting him it was very strange meeting someone new, in their home that was dying.  After we talked a few minutes we started to play a game. I figured I could do this for a few weeks maybe a month then he would pass away and I would feel like I did something nice for him.

However! The Hospice folks did such a good job with him that they extended his life for months. In those months I was changed from a volunteer to a friend. We did lots of talking, getting to know each other and of course played chess. I also got to meet some of his family, his mother, brother, sister, nieces and nephews. They were very enjoyable times and I hated it when I called and he was not home to visit.  Sometimes I even wondered why he was on hospice. Even though he couldn’t get out of bed on his own he looked so good.

Finally though the time I dreaded did come. He took a turn for the worse. He was admitted to a hospital, so instead of going to his home to visit I went there. He could hardly talk. He was in a fetal position and in much pain. I thought for sure that this would be the last time I saw him. He lean up to me and asked me to pray for him.  I thought, what would I pray? To tell you the truth I don’t remember what I prayed. But, shortly after he was able to start stretching out, he became more relaxed and was able to start holding a class so that he could drink some water. In the next couple of days he was back home.  I was amazed.

The next week I was able to visit him at home and play what turned out to be our last game of chess.  The following weekend he again became very sick and went back into the hospital. He ended up going into a Hospice facility and passed away in a few days. This would be the last time I would see him alive with his family at the hospice. He was in a very deep sleep.

I will treasure the time that I had with him. I wish that I could have known him before he got sick but our paths never crossed until that day, I was asked to be a hospice volunteer.

Rest in peace my friend.

Richard