As I was thinking and praying about the story of the healing of the blind man from the gospel this week, and our theme, “Praying for Healing”, I did a bit of reading on Florence Nightingale. We know her as a woman of strength and compassion- a wartime nurse, the founder of modern nursing, “The Lady with the Lamp” who made tireless rounds at night, a woman who was as fiercely committed to her ideals as she was kind to her patients. I was surprised, though, to learn that she was also a mystic and a woman of deep, if not always orthodox, faith. 
When she was a young woman she wrote in her diary, “God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation.” What a simple, remarkable way of expressing God’s call! Later, she studied at a Lutheran religious community in Germany, where watching the work of the pastor and the deaconesses in caring for the sick and aging further encouraged her to go in to nursing in the Crimean War, at a time when women were rare in hospitals, and even rarer on the battle field.
Continue reading “Wednesday Night Lenten Service Sermon- Praying for Healing”
First Sunday of Christmas- Year A
St. Luke Lutheran Church 