We Can See

A woman hovers between life and death in a hospital Intensive Care Unit …

From time-to-time she awakens to the “blips” and “beeps” of the monitoring machine, and the steady “whoosh, whoosh” of the respirator.

The family visits this hospital wilderness four times a day. And, as they stand by the bedside hour-after-hour, they hold their beloved’s hand and stroke her hair. As they draw close to each other, they can be heard to say, “We’ll be all right as long as we stick together.”

They know, in their heart-of-hearts what is sustaining them, day-after-day and week-after-week. They know, in their heart-of-hearts what is enabling them to hope and to love in that hospital wilderness. They know, in their heart-of-hearts that it is the Christ Spirit of God that gives them life, even as they are confronted with this distorted figure lying before them, and the painful fact of death looms ever closer.

In their heart-of-hearts they experience the sustaining Grace of a Gracious God…