Emergency Room Revelation

I happened to be in the emergency room a few weeks ago. 

It's the last place I (EVER) want to go, but for the sake of a dear one, I went.

A few hours into the visit, I ventured into the hallway on an errand and 

was drenched in the chaos of a raging patient. His screams, punctuated 

by frantic fist-pounding, reverberated over the nurses' station. 

But not a single doctor, nurse, or tech seemed to notice. 

They went about their work with good humor while he shrieked, 

"Let me go! Let me out! I'm getting out of here!" 

Jagged splinters of his terror penetrated my heart.

After scurrying back to the room to wait alone, 

I pushed the door mostly closed, 

just in case the madman managed to escape. 

Almost immediately another terrifying sound slipped through 

the door's crack. A weeping woman, just outside in the hallway. 

She sobbed as if her hospital visit had 

erupted into tragedy, with full voice and no inhibition. 

"Oh, Father God," I whispered... 

I wish I could tell you how I left the safety of that room and went to 

the weeping woman with a bottle of water and a listening ear. 

But that's not what happened. 

Would that I had edged near the caged rager and whispered 

prayers for holy intervention. 

But ... no.

"Please get me out of here," 

is what came out of my heart. 

A fear-filled prayer. 

For myself. 

You like everything to be calm, for life to be smooth sailing. 

Yes. 

But I am at work here. 

People call out for Me in the chaos and 

desperation of a hospital ER, 

where there's sometimes screaming and weeping. 

Jehovah Shammah walks the halls of the hospital. He is there. 

How could I forget? 

Knowing "He is there" empowers Christ-like actions. 

Forgeting myself and reaching out to those in need— 

whether it be at the grocery, in a nursing home,

on a playground, or (gulp) at the emergency room—

is the real business of life. 

Next time, I'll remember. 

***

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