Sometimes when I'm thinking over my day I can formulate blurbs that I think are "blog worthy." They very rarely actually make it to a blog. Well, they very rarely make it to a public blog. They always make the ever-growing mental blog! Lately I feel like the candidates have been less humorous and more heartbreaking. Don't get me wrong, there's still the occasional crazy person like last week's chart- topper... suicidal crazy lady whom i asked if she wanted her meds. She flung off all clothing and blankets, turned and yelled "F*** You B****" while simultaneously giving me not one, but TWO birdies, spreading her legs and peeing at me. You either laugh or cry...
When the shift ends and the night turns dark, the ones that keep you up at night and haunt your dreams are the ones you can do nothing about. The teenage girl who can't stop shooting up. Pregnant. Homeless. Prostitute. Something in her voice is just so child-like - as if you can hear the innocence that was lost so many years ago crying out. A mere child, yet one who is living a life far harsher than one should ever see. The reality of the street life is met with the cold, hard, unforgiving face of addiction and she is so lost in the midst of it but I can feel her soul begging for help. Everything within me wants to hug her, to reach out, to tell her everything will be okay, to tell her of a God who loves her and can see the true person she so desperately wants to be beneath the layers of pain, heartache, and wrong choices.
Then there are those who choose to take their own lives. At what point you reach the conclusion that you cannot take this life any more is beyond me. I honestly don't comprehend the thought. I've heard it explained as the deepest type of self-absorption. A person is so self-involved that they cannot see how their actions will affect those around them - nor do they care. When I said I honestly don't comprehend it, I meant that - I have no biblical or philosophical idea here. I do however feel it is becoming much more prevalent among our culture. The pain caused by a death like this I daresay is more than most. The unanswered questions leave a scar far deeper. The guilt of the ones left behind asking what they could have done differently, could have said differently, haunts us in the dark of the night.
At the end of the day, at the end of the shift, at the end of each week we are left with choices. We choose the hope that drives us. We choose the truth to cling to. We choose the love that heals us. One day at a time, one shift at a time, one week at a time.
"You, O LORD, will not withhold Your compassion from me; Your lovingkindness and Your truth will continually preserve me."
Psalm 40:11
