ICU

Many people have stories full of hospital visits, either patient, visitor, or both. I consider myself a fortunate novice when it pertains to the medical life, but with all for of my kids having started their lives in intensive care units, I see the insights stacking up.

Life is so much like an ICU.

Moments of quiet solitude. Sweet sounds of breathing with the rhythmic beats of machines as white noise.

Then beeps and bumps when meds end. Interruptions from nurses, techs and docs. Simple annoyances of daily life that we don’t plan for but should expect.

And then massive unexpected chaos. Things we could have never seen coming. Turns for the worse. We assume those turns are the major priority. Our individual or family problem should be the focus for the whole hospital -that all should run to our bedside when one of our own has loud cries or louder alarms. We want help immediately; we want answers now.

When all the while their is imminent danger next door. Someone is knocking on death’s door just two units away. Someone else is trying to relay info to get home to their sick spouse and end their long day shift. We only see where we are. We miss what’s around and why we are there to begin with. We must implore ourselves to get outside what we know and remember others first. It's the only way to escape anxious frustration. The solitude will begin again. The natural rhythmic hums will return. But when our chaos is too hard to endure alone, and it’s all we can do to remember to take our next breath, we wait. Wait for things to return to normal.

One thing we all feel together as one pod in those intensive care units - the essence of waiting.

Waiting to hear from the doctor, waiting for test results, waiting for the meds to work, waiting for some good news, waiting to go home. Waiting.

But as Elizabeth Elliot beautifully states, "Many times in my life God has asked me to wait when I wanted to move forward. He has kept me in the dark when I asked for light. To my pleas for guidance His answer has often been Sit still, My daughter. [But] I like to see progress. ... He is very patient with us when we are trying to be patient with Him."