I visited an elderly man in the hospital last week. He had just had a stroke. He was pretty affected by it. He talked nonsense if you could understand him at all. It didn't seem that he was aware of where he was or what was going on around him. The room was rather quiet so I began to read Psalms to him. This is a man who is not familiar with the Bible at all, but I thought it might be therapeutic anyway. I started with Psalm 139. Shortly into the Psalm, he declared, "incredible." As I continued to read, he started to nod his head. When I finished the Psalm, he sighed and said, "holy smokes." I proceeded to read another Psalm. He proceeded to nod, and when I finished he said with a sigh, "holy smokes." I went ahead and read another Psalm, then another. Every time I did, he would nod along in agreement and then bring his amen of "holy smokes." I figure I read to him at least 15 Psalms, each with the same punctuation from my aging, bed bound, stroke impaired patient.

What was going on? What could he hear/understand? How was his jumbled brain interpreting what he heard? Or was there ministry riding on the words of the Psalms, spirit to spirit ministry? I know what I saw, heard, and felt. However, there was much more happening that I can't fully explain. At the time, and even now, the unexplainable was perfectly fine with me, because what I had the privilege of witnessing was both very genuine and very precious.