Light is light, even if it is but the last of a long series of reflections.
George MacDonald
Joy
In January 2014 I’ll be somewhere else doing something new each morning. My trip begins in Guatemala. I don’t know much about Guatemala. Many things will be different. In February things will change again. With Honduras will come new geography, new people, and other new differences. In no time at all we’ll be breaking camp and busing down to Nicaragua and then again to Costa Rica. New language, history, landscapes, traditions, and etiquette.
Life can change fast. There aren’t many places that deal with this fact as often as the ED where I work. A few patient’s walk away with scars. Some get transferred to other hospitals for more emergent care. Others don’t make it. Sometimes family don’t even have time to say goodbye. Trauma is arguably the worst. Healthy young people killed by car accidents and gasoline explosions. Children and open 4-story windows. Infants in the front seat.
These incidents leave existential questions in their wake. I liked what one sweet old lady had to say on the matter. The patient tripped on a doormat going to church. Aside from a few scratches she was fine, and “Anyways,” she said, “I’m going to heaven, but dangit! that rug can go to hell!”
Who and what will be divided up at the judgment is not for me to say. But trials do a dang good job of subdividing us humans into one camp or another: those who walk each day in the strength that God provides, and those who walk according to their own strength.
Trials are pretty much a sure thing. But even more so is joy. Yet a little while, the coming one will come and will not delay. Darkness flees before El Shaddai. There is no place you can go that he can’t bring you back from. One moment you’re lost and alone in darkness, the next moment you’re blinking in the glorious daylight. Never again will you feel pain but you will receive what was promised: The Kingdom of Heaven.
