On a ship far away . . .

This just happens to be my blog post 1001.  It's also reblogged from "Krissy on Mercy".  I like it because Krissy is a down-home girl.  She's from Duluth.  And she shares the reality of what happens on a medical hospital ship far away.

It’s remarkable how you can forget.

You live in this place that is filled with hope, healing, before-and-after pictures that bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye.  You share meals and share stories and make coffee and answer emails and fill out forms and teach your students and wash the plates and the pots and the pans… and in all that you can know you are doing a wonderful thing but not realize the gravity of it until the moment.

The moment when you hear “I don’t have any details, but they are resuscitating a 5 year old girl in the OR.”

And you gasp as you remember.

We don’t just change lives.  We save them, too. And sometimes we don’t.  And it’s really not up to us. 

And the managing director makes an overhead page and begins to pray and every single person stops what they are doing – they stop the emails and the teaching and the serving and the cleaning of plates and pots and pans, so we can unite together, this beautiful place of hope and healing, of tongues and accents and faiths; we unite together in speaking life and hope and healing over this little girl, and wisdom and strength and peace over the operating room staff; we unite together to fight to keep that little girl with us for just a little bit longer, and a little longer after that.  We fight together for her to experience the joy of healing, the joy of returning home without the tumor that defined her for so many years, for her family to know what it’s like to live free of shame. 

And slowly you return to your routine of emails or forms or students or dishes or patients but it’s still there, in the back of your mind.  Then a bit later you come together and as a family you hear that the little one has gone to be with Jesus.  And you also hear there are over 5100 patients who we could not help this year.  And your gut twists and turns with the injustice of it all; with the pain, sadness, and with the acknowledgement that somehow, regardless of these things... God is.

And we cry together and we pray together and then we sing together… how great is our God, He is mighty to save, blessed be your name.

This place.  My heart.