Walk into any emergency room in the US and you will see the same things. People waiting. Loved ones, waiting to hear. Sick and injured waiting to be seen. Worry. Pain. Fatigue. Impatience. But follow the hallway and through the doors you will find a different picture. Oh, you will still see the worry, pain and fatigue. But in the place of all the waiting, you will see motion. Nurses, radiologists, lab techs and doctors. All moving. You see, in this area, these are the most emergent cases. These are the patients who can't wait in that room. Here you will find trauma. Here is all the action. And what's the name of the game? Stability. All the professionals are working toward that goal. Keep those lungs working. Stop the bleeding. Get that heart pumping. These are not the professionals who worry about scars. Life is the goal, not the quality of it. Do you ever feel that you're in God's ER? Maybe you're waiting... Waiting... Waiting... Maybe you're bleeding out. Maybe you're lung is punctured. Maybe you've experienced a spinal injury and you can't feel anything. Something isn't working and it's a major crisis. You're on the gurney. Worried. Hurting. Tired. You can't feel or see it, but He's working. His goal is to get you stable. And what's next? Maybe getting stable is all the help you need. Sometimes the problem is much deeper. He's working on the symptoms because you aren't in a healthy environment. He's pumping you full of fluids. Watching your blood pressure and heart rhythms. And once you're stable?
Then He moves you. He finds a clean room and bed. He puts the right staff around you to monitor you. He's gotten the bleeding stopped. Now it's time to treat the cause. Now it's time to get you healed. It may required extensive surgery. Or painful therapy. You weren't ready before, but now you're stable. It's a mess. You're a mess. But you're one step closer to healing. Sometimes it's just a paper cut. But many times, it's worse. A lot worse.
It's a long and painful process. Lonely. But this hospital, this place of healing, is full of people. People who are going through this very process. Just at different levels than you. Don't rush it. Take it at His pace. He knows the beginning and the end better than you do. We have all been there and His are the gentlest of Hands.
