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All of a sudden
And out of the blue
Winds started to beat
And angry clouds grew
Waves whipped in frenzy
Assaulting the boat
Whispering fears that
We’d not stay afloat
I had known for a while that my sister was in hospital. She was often in hospital with one operation or another. No one told me as there was nothing I could do, living so far away.
Suddenly the phone rang. Something had gone wrong, a lapse of concentration from the surgeon. There was a cyst, oozing poison into the tight spaces around the major organs in her abdomen. She was on life support.
“You might want to come dow,” words spoken in ominous tones.
I packed a bag and began the long journey.
Out there on the water?
A man? Could it be?
The waves’ rise and fall
Made it so hard too see
A voice on the wind called
“Step out on the sea
Leave all behind and
Come, walk with me.”
The small ward with its curtained cubicles had more than its fair share of nurses. Monitors blinked a confusion of numbers and every so often an alarm would sound somewhere.
The bruised flesh of my sister’s arm showed where needles had been inserted and then removed. She lay so still, the pink of her tongue wrapped around the intrusion of a ventilator. Her chest lifted slightly with every mechanical pulse.
Kept sedated, she felt nothing. Perhaps she dreamed.
I held her hand gently and I prayed. Promises God whispered on my journey down poured hope into my troubled heart.
A hesitant step and
The boat was behind
Rain beating down left
Me reeling and blind
A crest raised me up
A trough dragged me down
Turbulent waters
Surged all around
The doctor requested to see Linda’s husband. He looked at me mutely, pleading for my support so I followed, uninvited but unchallenged.
The doctor’s body folded into the chair, the heavy gravity pull of her shoulders and her gaze upon the floor spoke an eloquent message.
She outlined the procedure they planned, something about more tubes and water flushing through. She could give no statistics to assure us that it would work, or time lines to give us hope for recovery. Doing nothing, she confessed, would certainly kill Linda. The operation at least gave her a fifty-fifty chance.
I caught just a glimpse
So sure it was You
A towering wave then
Obscured my view
I couldn’t decide which
Direction to face
The sea and the storm carved
A dangerous place
The thing about doctors, and their fifty-fifty chances, I consoled myself, is that it was based on their medical expertise. With God’s omnipotent power added to the scales, there was no fifty-fifty chance.
And yet, how many people that I had prayed for had recovered? My past history of praying for the sick was littered with bitter disappointments.
But it wasn't about me. My sister’s recovery wasn’t in my hands. My words were not a rehearsed good wish spell blended with a dose of blind optimism, but an appeal to a sovereign ruler who has all things beneath His feet.
But then, she wasn't a Christian. Would God hold that against her?
I tossed between hope and despair.
I stumbled awhile
To the left then the right
The storm howled round me
A frightening sight
And then I stopped moving
My energy spent
The sea yawned beneath me
And downward I went
Where was my miracle? Why was my sister still lying on the hospital bed? Days had lengthened into weeks, and those weeks were beginning to age into months. Some of the monitors had been dismantled, and some of the drips had been withdrawn, only to be replaced just days later. The word “comfortable” had lost its meaning.
God seemed as silent as my sister. Had my lack of consistent prayer sedated him? I was afraid to pray because of the selfishness of my request. There was a whole world out there, but I had reduced the size of it to the confines of one hospital bed.
Just as I embraced
My watery grave
He grasped at my hand
To lift me, so save
His smile broad and reckless
His grip so secure
His eyes filled with love that
I’d not seen before
I rested my head against the side of the bed, closed my eyes. As I held my sister’s hand, I felt Someone was holding mine.
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