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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

In The General Hospital

Basically I’ve titled this thusly, because my daughter didn’t believe I would (And yes, General Hospital was my favorite soap back in the day). You see, today has been a day of watching the “soap opera” of my family’s life mesh with the “soap opera” that one watches and participates in when one spends a day in a hospital emergency room.

“Today” actually began yesterday. My mom spent the weekend with me and by Sunday she felt quite ill (… uhm, now that I’m reading the previous sentence, that doesn’t seem to speak too well of my hospitality). Actually, a previous condition blossomed and made it clear that mom needed medical attention, so off we went, back to her hometown and her doctor.

By 9 am we were sitting in an urgent care center (as we were advised to do) which had a giant poster with the word “Risk” prominently displayed.

By 9:30 am we had wisely moved on to the area’s General Hospital (as we were advised to do) and were sitting in the ER waiting room. I was reminded, as I looked around, that there never seem to be any Dr. Tony Gates types just hanging around when I’m in the ER (yes, I loved the show “ER”). You semi-expect someone to run through the room flinging their stethoscope around their neck yelling “stat!” However, the room was uncharacteristically quiet and still, affording me the time to be the same. I had been lifting up those little “help me” prayers throughout the morning, but my usual morning time of sitting and conversing with God had been replaced by the morning’s rush. I think God quite understands my change of venue and time frame.

By 10 am we were in an examination room. Mom was hooked up to IV’s and started on pain meds. This began an 11 hour wait for the OR. Waiting is hard to do, for patient and family. It can get tedious and worrisome, but our family history is one of facing the situation with patience and humor. This wonderful hospital offers wi-fi, and I just happened to have my laptop with me. With a sad selection of shows on the room’s TV, we turned to the internet and videos for something to take her mind off of her pain (Thank you YouTube and Tiger Woods).

When she nodded off to sleep for those blissful moments of unconsciousness, I admit that boredom raised its ugly head. I found myself considering McGyver projects with the available gloves, tape, tubing, and a stick of gum. And yes, gloves can be blown up into balloons.

By 9 pm we were told about plan…. D, or was it E? The former plan of transporting her to a hospital where there was an empty bed was replaced by the new plan of remaining at the current hospital where a bed opened up. Everything fell into place and surgery happened within the hour.

Waiting, part deaux:

Then we (my daughter and son-in-law arrived by then) were shown to the OR waiting room where we spend time relaying information to family and friends. My brother and sister live out of town and I know they wanted to be there with us, but we will each have a time to help out. As we waited, we prayed, visited, found a coffee machine, Twittered, IM’ed, emailed, jogged (for a bit of fresh air and a necessary trip out to the car), Facebooked, and connected with people that care about mom and about us. The responses to our information and requests for prayer came in overwhelmingly quick and en masse. Being on the receiving end of that compassion and care does lighten the load and make one feel loved.

Within two and a half hours of her surgery, she was in the ICU and we began settling in to the new digs there. Sleep tonight is intermittent, but we are all getting some rest as we are able. Mom is doing well in the scheme of things and is so thankful for the words of kindness and the prayers that have been offered to her and on her behalf.

So, for those of you who have been asking, those are some of the details. Her perfed ulcer is sealed up, and her gall bladder has been removed. But her attitude of gratitude and her expectation of overcoming this remains steadfast.

So now for my thoughts on the day and a couple of things that stand out to me:

Walking in their shoes: I’m being given a refresher course on what it means to sit in a hospital with someone you love. I visit hospitals every week. I’m a pastor. That’s what I do. I care about my congregation and have the honor of sitting with them during a time of struggle, fear, pain, and questions. I had major surgery a number of years ago, and that, along with this foray back into the patient’s perspective, multiplies my compassion for those whom I will visit in the future.

Making lemonade: Life happens. There are ups and downs. I remember my mom saying once that if you never had the great struggles, you wouldn’t fully appreciate the great joys. So in my family, we experience both the ups and downs, all the while knowing that God loves us through everything we face. Because we fully rely on Him, we know the joy of celebrating and also the comfort of being given His strength to persevere and overcome. Because we don’t have to be slaves to worry, we can face a day in the ER with patience, humor, and moments of growing closer together.

Dr. Tony Gates a no-show: When you watch ER, and all those other hospital shows, you see these brilliant doctors and nurses who breeze into the patient’s life with the perfect answer and cure. Everything, for the most part, ends up with a timely and tidy finish. But the reality of it is that in “real life” the doctors and nurses we meet have to earn our confidence. We step out in faith, wanting to trust them for our care. What I am experiencing here (as I and many others do every day) is the expertise and compassion of a medical staff that really do care. I watched the night nurse as she stood over my mother and offered excellent medical care and spoke and acted with gentleness and compassion.

God’s compassion and care goes beyond what we feeble humans can accomplish. Though my trust in a new doctor or situation may waiver, I am able to step out in faith and trust God for my care and for the care of my family, friends, and those whom I visit in the hospitals from week to week. God continually stands at the bedside, offering His most excellent care and He speaks peace and healing into our lives.

In all these things, I’ve witnessed God’s grace and mercy. He has moved through the actions of others, and has been present in every moment of this day. I can only move forward with confidence because I am fully aware of His Spirit filling up the room and flowing through me. So as I end my journaling of the day, I am thankful… just thankful.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

... by our love?

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. - James 1:22


Do you really have to SAY that you are a Christian before anyone can guess it? Is it only the voiced label of “Christian” or “church member” that makes your care for others evident? Hopefully we live our lives in a way that says we genuinely care about people, regardless of who they are or what they believe, of if they agree with our beliefs or opinions.

Am I failing Christ if I don’t hand out my church business card to every person with whom I come into contact? Is the Christian’s primary job to grow the numbers of church membership, or to be so passionate about God that we are out in our world, showing the people around us authentic love and care? I don’t mean as an exercise of “things Christians must do”, but as a natural outflowing of love, a love that reflects the grace and mercy one has received and experienced in their own life.

Some think this means you never have to talk about Jesus directly, and some think it means you use the word "Lord" 3 times in every sentence. I think that "authentic" love is demonstrated in how you boldly live out exactly what the Holy Spirit is leading you to say, to do, and perhaps sometimes, to even refrain from saying at a particular moment- and then living it out as the unique person God created you to be.

I’m not saying that we are to show Christ’s love for the sole purpose of bringing “them” into the church (I’ll rant on the “us vs them” ideology later). That is still not the point in what Christ teaches us. Do I hope that my local church will love people and share the Gospel with them, and bring them into the life of the Church? Of course, but that is the fruit of the relationship, not the sole reason for it. Love others, just for the sake and the pure joy of loving them.

Yes we are to listen (quiet time with Him is precious), but unless the church becomes dissatisfied with being pew-potatoes, and are out there “doing”, we are missing the mark. Will they really know we are Christians by our love? or… are those just lyrics of old?

Monday, September 21, 2009

Busy Again…

Wow. Just… wow. This summer I was quite busy with trips to here, there and yonder. I was busy with school, vacation, family and the church, and moving in several different directions at once. Busy. So very busy that I have failed to keep up with my blog since the July 18 posting below. Yikes! But… but… I was busy.

“Busy” is one of those bothersome words- one of those words that is used far too easily as an excuse, and becomes our justification for not doing the very things which we know we should be doing. “How have you been doing?” the question that moves in tandem with questions about someone’s absence, is often met with the reply, “Oh, I’ve been so busy with ________ (insert event/activity here).”

Even though being “busy” is a pet peeve of mine, you see here that I still managed to explain away my bloglessness with my being “busy.” But I HAVE been… busy… ya know. Truth is that we are all pretty… busy… going and coming, doing and being, and before you know it, you look up and realize that you have “busied” yourself into a corner.

All the “doing” we do has a purpose. Yes? But when we fill up our lives on too much busy-ness, we are setting ourselves up to miss out on the reasons that we first chose to be “busy”. For instance, soccer mom takes the kids to practice after school, 2 days a week. The reason the kids are in soccer are because they enjoy the sport. Mom and dad want to support the kids in their enjoyment of soccer. But the kids also want to be in Scouts, dance, and the band, so the schedules are created, and the routes are driven daily. Following the after-school activities is home and homework, chores, and maybe even a family meal together… maybe.

What many families end up confessing is that in the midst of all that activity, they find that at the end of the week, they have spend a quantity of time together, in transit from one activity to another, but no quality time actually talking to each other. The things that they have loaded their calendars with are the very things that are preventing them from having face to face time with each other.

This doesn’t even take into account of the weariness and then guilt that parents feel because their own duties at home don’t begin till late at night. When do you work on your own projects or do the bills or care for the house? Something is defiantly going to suffer from lack of time and energy.

Reading back over this, it could sound as though I am urging people to refrain from sports or band rehearsals. Not so. There is no magic formula for how to raise a family or how to budget your time, energy and money. But I believe that it is so important to be purposeful in taking on that “one more thing” into your schedule. Perhaps we need to schedule in things like “spend 2 hours with Susie after school”, “play Guitar Hero with Bobby”, “take Annie to restaurant of her choice, just to chat” and so on. My daughter was a busy (there it is again) kid who loved being involved with church, school and friends, but to this day, we will both tell you that some of our favorite times were spend cuddled up on the couch on a lazy Saturday, reading aloud to each other for hours, and the long talks about important things and even the “nothing” things.

So just be intentional with creating time with those you say are important to you. Those moments are so precious. I’m going to have to schedule a trip with my daughter this week. I’d have called her earlier, but I’ve been so busy…. oops.

(Note to self... get busy posting regularly again... oh.. oops again)