The Waiting Room

For the last three years of her life, Mom lived in a community of about 100 men and women. The average resident’s age was probably mid-eighties. 

As is common in most Independent Living Facilities, hardly 48 hours go by when an ambulance isn’t called to bring someone to the hospital. Most of the time the resident returns home after a day or so. 

Sometimes they never return.

Mom also had her share of visits to doctors’ and hospital waiting rooms during her three years at Ashwood Meadows. Not for anything serious. Just the typical age-related aches, pains, and ailments. 

But after so many years of watching so many of the friends at Ashwood get sick – and then die – Mom said to me on more than one occasion in her last few months: “I feel like I am in the waiting room of heaven.” 

Each time she said it, I brushed it aside. Not only did I not want to hear her talking like that, but Mom was quite healthy for a 90-year-old. Surely we would have her for another ten years. 

Then I got the call on August 1 in 2018. 

I’ve thought quite often since then of her “waiting room of heaven” comment. And I cannot adequately express how comforted I am to know Mom not only knew Jesus, she loved Jesus. And I’ve not a shred of doubt she is with Jesus even as I type these words on the keyboard. 

Ah, yes. “The waiting room of heaven.” 

We all know what it’s like to wait in a doctor’s office for the medical assistant to call our name and usher us into the exam room. I wonder if it won’t be something like that when we die. 

An angel will call our name and usher us into the Great Physician’s exam room. To some, the Physician will say, “I am so very sorry. I have bad news for you. You refused the treatment I frequently prescribed for you. And now there is nothing else I can do. Your condition is hopeless. Depart from me into eternal anguish and darkness” (John 3:36, et al.). 

But to some the Physician will say, “I’ve good news for you. You used the treatment I prescribed, and it has worked well. You are forever healed. Enter into the eternal light and joy of your Lord.” (John 3:36, et al.) 

We are each – every one of us – in the waiting room of the Great Physician. Some will hear their name called before they eat their next meal. Others won’t hear their name for several decades. Still others will hear their name at some time in between. 

When the angel ushers you into the Great Exam Room, what will the Physician say to you?