Interruption

Two different friends of mine have been doing some hospital time in the last few days. One at a parent's bedside. One because her unborn baby is facing some serious challenges. Another friend has done hospital time for her own health issues as well as with her little one, and her little one is facing more. A family we knew years ago has spent 3 weeks at the bedside of their 20-year-old daugher in ICU as she battles infection after infection. A friend of mine at church is watching her baby grandson battle for his life in ICU. Having done a recent stretch of time in ICU myself, I am acutely aware of what "hospital time" feels like. Uncertainty. Pain. Long nights. Mindless television. Never a decent nap. Beeping monitors. Tubes everywhere. Waiting for the doctor. Always at the mercy of those people with the test tubes and needles. Life shrinks in a way.

[My precious friends--you know who you are. To other precious ones, maybe not doing hospital time, but doing valley time--I love you all and pray for you.]

I realized today I've been thinking about how my own hospital experience interrupted my life. I hadn't realized that's how I saw it until I heard news of another friend doing hospital time and I started praying as if her life had been interrupted.

I think I'm wrong on that. I don't think any of this is an interruption. I think it's unparalleled training ground. Unparalleled opportunity to think and pray. Unparalleled opportunity to find out just how near God is. Unparalleled opportunity to know the comfort of Jesus Christ himself and share it with others.

So as I walk through the rest of this day, fighting back tears for those I love, fighting back the unexpected waves of fear that come against me, both for myself and for my friends....I choose to see this new time in my life as my life....not an interruption, but my life. My life and my opportunity to live always in the tender and sovereign care of Jesus Christ himself.

Even so.....come quickly, Lord Jesus.