Jennie was startled by the sound of a car in the driveway. Looking out through the window she could see Mr. Adams pulling up. He walked quickly up to the porch. As she opened the door it was evident that he was troubled. Breathlessly, he asked if she could come right away to see Aunt Sarah. With no further delay Jennie went to the closet for her light coat. She knew how quickly the weather could change in this early springtime.
"She's awfully sick, Jennie!" he confided. `The doctor wants her to have surgery."
"Mr. Adams," she inquired as they drove along, "when did all this happen?"
"Well, it's been coming a long time now," he answered sadly. "Aunt Sarah hasn't felt like herself for over a year."
Jennie thought so, too, in retrospect. She remembered now all the times she had watched her, wondering. Hurrying up the porch steps, she found Aunt Sarah waiting for her. Although bravely carrying on, her face looked troubled, ill, and sad. The brown dress she wore took away what color was left in her face. This time it was Jennie who was trying to be strong for her.
"I've known it a long time Jennie, but I didn't want to go to the doctor. I was afraid he'd operate." Aunt Sarah had a strong aversion when it came to going to doctors. She would do everything in her power to avoid them. All through her life she managed, committing her illnesses to the Lord, trusting Him to bring her through. She knew He could do this, regardless of the seriousness of her problem, but she also realized that this case was different. This was an alarming illness. She admitted that perhaps she owed it to her family to seek a doctor's care.
She asked Jennie to pray with her. Together they walked down the familiar hallway to the small bedroom at the back of the house. The twin beds fit against opposite walls of the room with a dressing table between them. The two of them knelt on the bare floor by one of the beds. The entire experience seemed unreal, like a dream that they would surely waken from.
Praying for Aunt Sarah, in front of her, was a great deal different than praying alone in the privacy of her room at home. As much as she wanted to pray a long, beautiful prayer with a lot of conviction in it, her mouth seemed stopped. As she knelt there in the quiet, the certainty of Aunt Sarah's death seemed inevitable to her.
She felt herself unable to pray for her healing, even though there was nothing she wanted more. As they knelt side by side, Jennie could only pray for strength, grace, and comfort—that if it were the Lord's will He would raise her up again.
Later, they sat in the kitchen. There were so many memories in that kitchen with the cozy red rocker. So many months and even years of sharing echoed from the walls. Was it all going to end overnight?
A day or two later Jennie returned for another visit. Mr. Adams had made his decision. The operation would be carried out. It seemed to be the only hope for his wife's recovery. Everyone felt he was making the right choice. Without it, there would be no hope. Now, they would just have to wait.
Life would never be the same without Aunt Sarah. And to think that once she resented having to spend time with her. Now in this spring so full of changes, everything was doubly-dear to her heart. Why hadn't she come over more often during the past months?
They sat together on the porch swing. Aunt Sarah would go into the hospital tomorrow. She appeared little and afraid and so pale, sitting there beside Jennie.
Looking across at Jennie searchingly, with those big sad brown eyes, she asked, "Will you be strong for me?"
Even with Aunt Sarah's great faith, Jennie could sense she was being tried to the utmost. Her overwhelming fear of doctors and hospitals was hard for her. Talking with Jennie, she stressed her belief that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." She talked for a long while about faith and prayer in relation to this sickness. When she finished, Jennie felt she had been given an important mission to carry out. It almost seemed that it would be up to her in the coming days to pray so effectually that Aunt Sarah would get well.
"I asked the Lord for seventy good years," she told Jennie, "and He gave them to me. But I'd really like to stick around longer. I'm just seventy-three now." She looked at Jennie again with a half smile, half pathos on her face. She had always been strong and well, her life busy and filled with doing for others. This probable sudden end was coming as a terrible shock.
"I really don't want the surgery," she added, "but everyone says I must have it." She said this in a sad, resigned voice.
Before the operation, Jennie and Mrs. Marshall went to visit Aunt Sarah at the hospital. Mrs. Marshall seemed so strong and well, compared with Aunt Sarah. They entered those long hospital corridors with sickness, suffering and death on every side. Jennie felt the old fears come back, and wanted to turn and run away.
Their footsteps echoed along the hallway and then they came to her room number. Walking in, they found her sitting up in bed, wearing the pink robe Mr. Adams had bought for her. Maybe it was the pink of the robe, but her cheeks were rosy again and it was hard to believe she was even sick. She greeted them just as she would have in her own home, her eyes sparkling, a smile crossing her face.
Before they left, she turned to Jennie and said, "I won't be able to pray during the crucial hours of the operation, nor the time afterward. Will you remember to do it for me?"
Now Jennie knew how Alec felt when he carried his big burden of trying to bring souls to the Lord. Aunt Sarah would not intentionally put a heavy burden on Jennie—she loved her too much. But without meaning to, she left the impression that the entire outcome of the operation would depend upon Jennie's strength—her ability to pray hard enough, long enough.
Turning to Mrs. Marshall, she said with tears in her eyes, "Jennie has been a daughter to me."
Mr. Adams called Jennie a few days later and asked if she would come and see his wife. "Already?" Jennie asked. "Is she ready for me this soon?" She was dreading the visit and tried desperately to put it off a bit longer.
"Yes," Mr. Adams said resignedly. "Aunt Sarah is ready to see you." Following him along the hospital corridor, her steps seemed rooted to the floor. She dreaded seeing her as she must be now. Her old terror of death made her want to flee from the presence of suffering. She hated hospitals, especially this one with its ugly green corridors. Mr. Adams led the way as he walked along so alert and well and strong. His face did not betray his reluctance to acknowledge how little hope was left.
As she approached the room, Jennie was remembering the day her father said to her, "We pray 'if it is Thy will,' because we don't know if it is the Lord's will for Mrs. Adams to live or not. She is in her seventies. If she were a much younger person, it would be different. It is, in a sense, a natural span of life for her."
Her father's words seemed cruel to Jennie. What difference did it make how old she was? She was still her dearest friend. But her father had persisted.
"The Lord wouldn't have you wearing yourself out like this, almost begging," he continued. He opened his Bible and turned to Phil. 4 and read verses 6 and 7: "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
She had looked up at her father that day with tears in her eyes. "I have hardly stopped praying an hour since she went into the hospital, all day long and through wakeful hours in the night."
One look at Jennie confirmed this. Her father felt distressed because his daughter was not praying in such a manner as to know the peace of God, a peace which could pass all understanding. She was not really praying, but rather insisting upon her own will; not willing to persevere in prayer, then calmly wait upon God for His way to unfold.
The short visit with Aunt Sarah only intensified her fears. She was a very sick woman and little hope was held out for her recovery. All Aunt Sarah's sparkle and bounce had disappeared.