Three people sat with me in a doctor’s waiting room this week. The man to my left was not at all happy to be there and intensely scrolled through something on his phone. The lady to my right was so calm that this appeared to be just one of many errands that day. And the man who sat nearest the door was shaking and holding his left arm. Every vein on his very thin, tanned face and head were bulging and I worried his heart would give out right then and there! But the four of us sat together, in silence.

We were there to receive help for our broken bodies even though nothing would be fixed that day.

It’s a vulnerable place.

Once you enter the building and walk down the hall, you enter into whichever door applies to you and in doing so, revealing something of the nature for why you’re there. Yet no one really knows the story about each other.

In my second appointment that same day, I sat in another waiting room, this time with just women and all in hospital gowns. I smiled at them with my clothes and purse under my arm, and sat down. This was a silent group too. I wanted to say something, to break the ice, to say, “Hey, as much as I don’t want to be here, I’m glad to not be alone!” But I didn’t. I sat silently with them. Most people took out their phones, a few stared straight ahead, and there were some who just leaned back and closed their eyes.

It’s a strange thing, this idea of silence and privacy. I understand and I’m happy to sit quietly by myself. But, there is a high probability that some of the people there that day, went home and relayed their experience on social media, expressing to friends and strangers alike what happened. We reveal what we want to reveal and when we want to and to whom we want to. We carefully curate our experiences and our perspective of them. I guess that’s what I’m doing right now!

I just wonder what our world (or waiting rooms) would be like if we were a little more courageous in our vulnerability in the actual moment. This week, I sat silently and respected people’s privacy including my own. I observed that we were all there for different but related issues and that was all. I’m okay with that. I’m just curious.

It made me think about church.

I’m grateful for ours. I am guaranteed that someone will ask me how I am doing. But not just as a greeting. They’ll really mean, “HOW are you doing?” and they’ll stick around for me to answer. It’s a lovely place of lovely people who understand that we are better together than alone. I like this. I wonder how the healthcare system could be more like this.

Maybe that is what church is all about. Maybe as we come together and care for each other, we catch just a little taste of what God’s love is really like. And if we allow ourselves to love and be loved then when we sit in waiting rooms that feel cold and lonely, we will remember how good it felt to be seen and known and maybe, just maybe, we try offering that to someone else.

Now, I’m definitely not saying that chatty-ness in a waiting room equals God’s love. Nope. Not at all. (Sometimes, in the name of trying to love people we can really be insensitive to their actual needs!) We need to be respectful, discerning and compassionate. But if we are not experiencing the genuine care of fellow Christians (spiritual brothers and sisters) in such a way that our own emotional tanks are being filled up, then how do we enter the waiting rooms of our world with compassion and empathy?

We need each other don’t we.