Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Let the mountains move, and she will wake...


Today I am inspired by faith, hope, and love. I witnessed all of these tonight in a family at the most trying of times, in an impossible situation even, yet their words, their graceful movements, showed Christ’s light as a beacon in the dark.  Today it seemed my retreat continued, as if I had never left the beautiful property nestled in the hill country of south Texas and all while the water fell from the sky and the earth drank its living water.  Inside the hospital walls it’s easy to forget if it’s day or night, sunshine or storming, and as I entered the all too familiar hospital nothing was as I remembered it fourteen years ago. 

I quickly got lost in the tiled floor and ceiling as she led me to the floor her mom is on.  I felt so disoriented in a place I once visited everyday for months.  I was humbled to visit with her, her dad, her sister, and her beautiful mom, a true sleeping beauty.  I don’t know how long it was that we visited in the room, well, it was until shift change. I said my goodbye for tonight to the most gentle, soft spoken sleeping beauty, and joined the family in the cafeteria while the nurses attended her. 

I shared my father’s story with them, his months in ICU there, his awakening and disorientation afterward.  I told them how when he did wake after numerous plays of “Back Draft” in the vcr, he didn’t quite know who we were, or who he was even, well he couldn’t remember that he was married anyway. He thought my sister was a star on a soap opera and that I was the best nurse he’d ever had caring for him.  I shared with them the little sleep, the little food, and no time to do anything else those first few weeks, and of course about the time I passed out, in the ICU room, and really there isn’t much room for that!  We shared a lot of information, they so kindly told me how their mother is progressing, and we talked about faith, the only kind of faith, the blind kind.  

I was telling them about little Paige who will pray over the sick, when all of a sudden a stranger walked up in need. We helped her, and she wanted to thank us, so we said, just pray for Valerie please.  She then told us how she brought her dad, Hank, in two days before with his sugar over 600 and the last time it happened he slipped into a coma. I asked her if the doctors told her negative things about his recovery and she quickly said, yes they did. She then tells us, but then one day, he just woke up. Sometimes God speaks through others and tells you just want you need to hear. 

In faith, in hope, and in love, I had the privilege of watching this family tonight. I received my own message through them tonight, I remembered that nothing is hopeless, even when we feel despair and can’t take another step. We walk. We walk in faith, hope, and love just as this family is doing every moment of each day until Valerie just wakes up. And if faith, hope and love are the precursors for moving mountains, then let those mountains move, and she will wake.

Please add Valerie to your daily prayers, for her speedy recovery to awake.

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