Strange, the little things that encourage us and give us hope. My father was to have surgery by an eminent specialist on the following day. Test were still being done on him. I sat alone in the hospital hall while he was in X-ray. It was not yet seven in the morning. I watched the hospital come to life as all the people who made it urn came to work in full force. I began to think about my father’s doctor. He had the finest reputation in the Midwest. He was booked solid. We’d waited two weeks to fit into his schedule. He was unquestionably the best. But all his credentials and fine reputation, his thoroughness, didn’t satisfy something deep inside me. I didn’t even know what to call this feeling.. Sort of a gray area of discouragement.

While I was sitting there, the elevator door opened and out stepped my father’s doctor on the way to surgery. He was carrying a perfect pink rose. I didn’t expect him to speak or even recognize me. He barely knew me. But the rose… the rose spoke volumes to me. The man inside the doctor cared, above and beyond his medical skill; he cared deeply. I imagined him out in his garden, before the sun was fully up, searching for the one perfect rose that bloomed to bring to….

I didn’t know who. It didn’t really matter.

The holy bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:24, “ Let no one seek his (or her) own good, but the good of his (or her) neighbor.”

Just then the doctor saw me, smiled, and lifted his hand to wave, hurrying on his way. Even after he disappeared down the hall, I kept smiling too.

How about you? Take time to pray and ask our Father … how could I be an encourager today through some kind generous simple act.

In God’s Grace, Pastor Deb Domeier

PASTOR DEB MEETS BISHOP MARK HANSON

Pastor Deb met Bishop Mark Hanson at the Northwestern Ohio and northeastern Ohio Synod Retreat for Clergy, AIMs, and Full-time church Professionals this Winter. Bishop Mark Hanson was elected by the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA to serve as presiding bishop in 2001. Prior to that, he was bishop of the Saint Paul Area Synod and previously had served as pastor of three Minnesota congregations: Prince of Glory, Minneapolis; Edina Community Lutheran Church; and University Lutheran Church of Hope, Minneapolis.

Bishop Hanson graduated from Augsburg College with a bachelor's degree in sociology. He was a Rockefeller Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, and received a Master of Divinity degree there in 1972. He also attended Luther Seminary in St Paul, Minnesota, and was a Merrill Fellow at Harvard Divintiy School in 1979.

He has served as president of the Minnesota Council of Churches; vice chair of the ELCA Conference of Bishops; vice president of the Lutheran World Federation, and is a member of the executive council of the National Council of Churches USA. In 2003, he was elected president of the Lutheran World Federation, a position he holds concurrently with his position as presiding bishop of the ELCA. Hanson is by repution an advocate for social justice, especially issues that impact the poor, including racial justice, housing, welfare rights, and immigration rights.