Sometimes, something happens that makes you realize how blessed you have been in many ways. We live in a world of misery, although we try to cover it up with games and parties and "celebrations," even in our churches.
Yesterday, I visited a little girl in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Perhaps you have never been to a PICU or even heard of one. Perhaps you have never known anyone whose child has been to such a place. It is an eye-opener.
The girl is 2 years old. She has been operated on for a heart condition and there have been many complications. She lays in a bed, sedated, breathing roughly despite the oxygen being supplied to her. She has a long scar from her chest to her belly button from her surgery. She has a hole in her side from which drainage is taken. She is on dialysis and heavy medication. She is, thankfully, asleep.
My wife and I have raised four children. Never have any of our children been in such a place. None of them has ever been so heavily sedated or healing from such a wound or suffering such a time in life. I have never had to sit beside the bed of my child, watching her suffer, seeing the medications drip into her and the drainage drip out of her.
Each of us has good and bad in our lives. We have some very good things and some very bad things. The people sitting around you in church deal with problems you do not know and cannot imagine, in all likelihood. But there is always something worse. There is always something that can be even worse than what we experience.
This was one child in a place filled with children, all suffering serious issues (hence the use of PICU at all). Parents come in and out, visitors stand mute at the scene, nurses walk daily among the people doing what can be done. Every face is filled with the sense of where the person stands, in a place trying to pull life out of death. It is a quieting experience to be there.
When you lose your temper over someone pulling in front of you in traffic, or become angry over some political issue, or yell at your child for messing up their room, or worry because you may not have all you want, think about PICUs and ICUs and all the other places where people suffer so much, so patiently.
God has blessed us so much in our lives. Let us remember it at all times.
Yesterday, I visited a little girl in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Perhaps you have never been to a PICU or even heard of one. Perhaps you have never known anyone whose child has been to such a place. It is an eye-opener.
The girl is 2 years old. She has been operated on for a heart condition and there have been many complications. She lays in a bed, sedated, breathing roughly despite the oxygen being supplied to her. She has a long scar from her chest to her belly button from her surgery. She has a hole in her side from which drainage is taken. She is on dialysis and heavy medication. She is, thankfully, asleep.
My wife and I have raised four children. Never have any of our children been in such a place. None of them has ever been so heavily sedated or healing from such a wound or suffering such a time in life. I have never had to sit beside the bed of my child, watching her suffer, seeing the medications drip into her and the drainage drip out of her.
Each of us has good and bad in our lives. We have some very good things and some very bad things. The people sitting around you in church deal with problems you do not know and cannot imagine, in all likelihood. But there is always something worse. There is always something that can be even worse than what we experience.
This was one child in a place filled with children, all suffering serious issues (hence the use of PICU at all). Parents come in and out, visitors stand mute at the scene, nurses walk daily among the people doing what can be done. Every face is filled with the sense of where the person stands, in a place trying to pull life out of death. It is a quieting experience to be there.
When you lose your temper over someone pulling in front of you in traffic, or become angry over some political issue, or yell at your child for messing up their room, or worry because you may not have all you want, think about PICUs and ICUs and all the other places where people suffer so much, so patiently.
God has blessed us so much in our lives. Let us remember it at all times.