A discussion in Sunday School and a question was asked: have you ever done something with the best of intentions that turned out badly?

One young woman raised her hand and came close to tears as she described how, while living overseas, she had encouraged a friend to come to church that week. The friend was a Mormon, her husband was not, though he came with her when she did come. But she had a serious chronic illness that made it difficult and she hadn’t in some time. She missed everybody and she was missed.

H. talked her into it. She was so looking forward to it that she made herself do it and she did, where she was surrounded by exclamations of joy at the sight of her.

But. The woman’s husband took H. aside and reamed her, telling her, You don’t understand: it took all of my wife’s energy for this whole day and probably this whole week to make it here. You don’t get it! You don’t get what it does to her physically!

H. had regretted the whole thing intensely ever since. How had she not seen. How could she have done that to her friend. And her husband, too, for that matter, poor guy.

I immediately raised my hand. I have been that very ill person with chronic disease, I told her. I know how face time with friends your illness has deprived you of, when you get to finally have it, can power you through for a long long time afterwards and you never forget how much it meant to get to see them. You did the right thing.

She looked across the room at me with what I can only describe as a sudden fierce disbelieving hope, wanting that to be true.

I said it again. You did the right thing.

As I thought of the time in ’03 when my doctor showed up to my hospital room every morning and every evening on his own time to be present with me while I was going through this and I could not let him blame himself when it wasn’t in any way his fault. I couldn’t let him down. I couldn’t do that to him, I had to live.

Yes we tried an experimental med and yes it saved my life–but that came after he already had by who he was.

And there was the friend and her daughters who came over to wash my hair over the kitchen sink when my PCC line for IV feeding still being in meant that if any water got into that incision it would channel an infection straight to my heart.

Yes finally finally finally having clean hair again after two weeks was wonderful, but their being present was everything.

Days after I got out of the hospital, so weak that I knew in my bones that if I caught a cold it would kill me and well before masks were a findable thing in the wild, one of my sons was giving a talk in church and the other was playing the organ and I was not going to miss that. I am their mom. I cheer on my kids. I insisted on being wheeled into church.

I managed to sit upright through the opening prayer and I think song but that and the shower beforehand to get ready and I simply laid down on the pew and snoozed through the rest of the whole thing whether I wanted to or not.

But I was there. To the very best of my ability, I got to be there for my kids and I got some in person time with dear friends.

And every one of those moments with other people, when there was nothing left but who we are and how we feel, helped get me through that long recovery process.

First H. went to her friend’s house to be with her.

Then she gave her the courage to try and to find in herself the willingness to take that risk of exhaustion for the love it would bring into the light.

Yes H. did the right thing, so much yes.

And had it proved the wrong time that week then her friend would have had a goal to focus on for her future, knowing that she mattered to her friends.