Lindsey Thompson April 17 at 9:06 PM
My mask was soaking wet today.
Not with sweat like it usually is. (Well, maybe a little)
It was wet with tears.
It was soaking wet because I stood by the bed of a dying COVID patient sobbing while holding a phone next to her ear so that her daughter could say goodbye as she took her last breaths.
I held her hand and smoothed her hair so she could hear her daughter and feel someone close to her in her last moments. I silently wept beside her, as I listened to her daughter on the phone doing the same.
“You’re going to have a big surprise when you get to heaven. You’re going to be so happy.”
That’s what her daughter kept repeating because she didn’t want to tell her mother on this side of heaven that the patient’s husband had died suddenly of COVID the day before.
“He’s waiting for you. They’re all waiting for you.”
Then I wheeled her body down to a semi-truck parked outside the hospital to lie among countless others. People aren’t making that up. You can’t make this kind of thing up.
People aren’t losing a friend of a friend or even a distant relative. People are losing their entire families. Nurses and doctors are losing coworkers, and having to show up to work the next morning.
They’re not lying about how bad this is. Doctors here in New Jersey/New York around the world are terrified of it. They don’t want to close their eyes to sleep at night because they’re afraid they won’t wake up. They wear three masks to just try to stay safe because they are terrified.
Even when the economy begins to open back up, we need to be careful.
This virus is here.
It’s real.
Stay home.
Stay safe.
Don’t let your city become like this.
(Lindsey who is an ICU nurse from Tulsa graciously allowed me to use her story. She volunteered to go to New Jersey for 2 weeks to give the local nurses a break.)
And when I think of the sacrifice our healthcare workers are making, I am grateful. And I pray God will give them protection and the strength to go on in hopeless situations that stretch endless.
But because I know my God, because I know he loves us with a steadfast love, I refuse to let “Why Lord’s?” smash me. We cannot begin to fathom why this pandemic?–but we can understand a loving God who weeps with us and comforts us.
So what can we do? I know I am by nature an encourager, so I must shun the pull of darkness and encourage.
We must have faith this too will pass like every cataclysmic event in mankind’s history. We must press on toward an uncertain future, but with God by our side, we can trudge up the mountain of fear, worry, and doubt.
With His gentle hand to steady us, we can stand on that summit—more than conquerors and not fear to tumble headlong, crushed in a rockslide of defeat.
In another calamitous event—some would view the Jews as defeated. This powerful anonymous inscription—left on the wall of a German internment camp shows the faith I want, the faith that overcomes all:
I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love even when not feeling it.
I believe in God even when he is silent.
Again and again, to shore up my faith, I reach for the Psalms—a balm when God’s silence falls heavy on my soul:
Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
The Lord is King forever and ever; the nations will perish from his land.
You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed.
Psalm 10:1,16-18
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O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul,
with sorrow in my heart every day?
How long will my enemy have the upper hand?
Turn and answer me, O Lord my God!
Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.
But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the Lord because he is good to me.
Psalm 13
Please stop now and pray for the physical wellness of our healthcare workers as they put their life at risk daily. And pray for their mental strength as they take on the difficult role of “surrogate family” for the isolated dying.