It’s funny, it was just on the 12th that I posted on my blog a piece I called “Angels to each other,” inspired by my experience of the Emergency Room at UVA hospital, some years earlier.
Today I spent in the Emergency Room at Martha Jefferson Hospital, and had an equally positive experience. (No, I’m not shopping around.) A severe sore throat on Wednesday night turned into a cold which led to asthma and two nights of very little sleep. This morning I asked Nancy to bring me over to Martha Jeff, and she did, and stayed all day, and brought me home.
No point in going into the ins and outs of hospital treatment, save to remark how friendly and helpful the staff. This is merely to lead up to this point, which I made before and must make again.
There is an old saying that God has no hands to work through but ours. Regardless of your theology, surely you can see that the saying is not only true but obvious. It is never more obvious than when your life is in another person’s hands. The everyday functioning of an emergency room amounts to this: All these people – doctors, nurses, orderlies, various technical types – are there every day, waiting to help whoever comes in needing help. To quote again the cinquain I wrote after the previous experience:
E.R.
No breath.
Resource’s end.
Surrendering control
To these calm strangers, knowing them
God’s hands.