YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- Sometimes God arms his angels with clippers and combs. Sandy Ernst knows that, because four years ago she was looking to fill an empty place in her heart. Ernst found the outpouring of love she needed at the Yuma Rehabilitation Hospital, where she volunteers three times a week to calm fears, ease loneliness and give free haircuts.

The already bright and cheerful retired hairdresser beams when she talks about the joy of helping people in a way that goes far deeper than just bangs, sideburns and cowlicks.

"I go in there, hold people's hands, talk to them and it's amazing what I get from it. It just makes you feel so good," Ernst said. "I just feel like I'm doing something good for a change, instead of just sitting there and watching the soaps!"

Ernst, 68, volunteers from 1 to 5 p.m. three times a week at the Yuma Rehabilitation Hospital, where she strolls up and down the halls looking for patients in need of a trim, shampooing or styling. She has to stop short of doing perms and colors because of the chemicals. On an average day she can help five or six patients.

"This makes people feel good when they're sick. It just changes them," Ernst said. "I call this my good kind of therapy. It doesn't hurt."

Ernst credits God for leading her to this heartwarming service that she swears gives back to her more than she could ever give to others.

"I just know I am doing God's work," she said, recalling the time a nurse asked if cutting hair there was her ministry. "Well, I'd never thought of it that way, but I think it is."

Ernst discovered volunteering somewhat late in life. Her service at the Yuma Rehabilitation Hospital marks her first formal volunteer experience.

The native of Prescott, Ariz. has been a licensed hairdresser since 1962. Ernst and her husband have lived in Yuma for 10 years, but she has never worked professionally as a hairdresser here.

Ernst started volunteering at the rehabilitation hospital shortly after the death of her mother, who lived with Ernst for the last six years of her life.

"I couldn't stay home because I saw her everywhere."

But Ernst started out visiting patients, not doing hair. That all changed one day when a woman's hair needed a little help and Ernst ran home to get her curling iron and a can of hairspray. The woman and all the nurses raved, setting into motion a whole new experience for Ernst.

"What's amazing is that I couldn't have done any of this when I was younger. I didn't want to be around sick people and I have a really soft heart," she said. "But now I just take their hands and I have the right words to say because I'm working through God."

Sometimes those right words are sung. Ernst has been known to sing to patients, too. It happens when it comes up in conversation that she sings in the choir at First Church of the Nazarene. She recently sat down and sang a few songs with a retired pastor.

But even as her heart is being filled each day, it is challenged as well. Ernst says she has a hard time seeing young people who have suffered strokes, for example, and she hurts every time someone confides their loneliness to her.

Like the great hairdresser that she is, Ernst is there to listen.

"Oh, people pour their hearts out to me. As hairdressers we are psychiatrists."

She remembers one woman who was left with no one to care for her, so she was being sent to a nursing home.

"She said nobody loved her anymore. That's when I said 'Well, I love you. God loves you,'" she said, adding that such conversations aren't uncommon. "They cry to you and you want to bring them home and take care of them."

Ernst admits that she goes home depressed occasionally, when she truly does bring home patients - in her mind and her heart. "After I get home and I cook supper I usually let it go. You have to."

But the emotional and spiritual payback is always worth it and Ernst will always encourage others to give themselves the gift the giving.

"There are so many people out there who need help," she said. "People need to get out there and do more. It makes you feel good about yourself. You gain so much when you give."

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Information from: The Sun, http://www.yumasun.com

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