There was me, and another three people feeling this unease... "We haven't seen her around today; I wonder is she all right?"

We listened to 'reason' first of all! We stopped to think. We knew it had been cold out, not too surprising for someone feeling poorly to hole up in their place and keep to themselves awhile...

We listened to each other. "Probably she's gone to sleep by now." I called, anyway. "Either she's been talking to someone or she's just left her phone off the hook. If she's gone to bed, you'll never wake her up before morning."

We followed our usual routine and took care of the things we'd been planning to do. "And when we've got this done, I think I'd better knock on her door and see what's up."

We got a call from a professional assigned to looking after her... "I came by yesterday, and she wasn't answering her door. Could you see how she is?"

I knocked, the door and the window. Nothing. Anne and I went in. Our friend was on the floor, trying to crawl to the bathroom, too sick to croak out more than a few faint words. I told her she could put her weight on me getting there, then left Anne in charge while I went back to let our caller know what we were finding. It got clearer and clearer we would need an ambulance. We asked where they'd be taking her, then waited for the pro to find out the details for us--and 9 hours later found her ourselves in a different hospital, where she'd been in the emergency room waiting for a hospital bed. Pneumonia.

The best we can work this out, she'd been lying in her place too sick to move for over a day. By now she's better, has been walking in the corridors & will probably recover just fine.

We could really put ourselves through some guilt: Why didn't we this Why didn't we that?! And I'll just say, we did what we knew and things turned out the way they were supposed to.

But we all had that feeling! Instead of stopping to think, we could have stopped to pray, and ask what to do. That's what we didn't do.