What I Saw

My day was spent seeing machines breathing for tiny bodies, babies with flat affects who startled as I drew near because of abuse. There are no opportunities for teaching when the parents are just not there. There are no opportunities for interaction when the other's consciousness is just not there. I gave pain medications based on a heart rate and a blood pressure. Sedatives, paralytics. I saw lifelessness, and I saw myself sustaining it. 

Even though my actions may have meant healing and life, I couldn't see that. It's why I wasn't cut out for the PICU. It's not because of the PICU, it's because of what I saw there. And I didn't want to stay long enough to become numb to it, to see something else.

Betty says crying is like washing the windows of your soul. I went into the shower after that day and spent some good time sitting on the floor of the shower all huddled up and crying for the children until he came in. He saw me, and got in the shower with me. He lifted me to my feet and held me. When he got out, he put the plug in the tub, and sat beside the tub and let the water fill up around me. We talked. I don't remember what we said. But it was good and healing.

Maybe it's because it was the first time anyone had ever really entered into my place of sorrow. Maybe it's because it was the first time it was really evident that I wasn't alone in anything anymore, that I didn't have to run away or hide to be sad. Maybe it's because it was a picture of God - how He enters into life with us and makes it bearable, because we're not alone, how we don't have to be clean to be with Him. Whatever the reason, I saw it as the very definition of precious itself. 

"I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones." 

Isaiah 54:12