Two days ago, the ambulance bumped along the road. Outside the windows, it was dark. Inside, I sat on the bench seat near the frail lady on the stretcher. Besides my usual gloves, I also wore an N-95 mask and gown. The lady had COVID-19. We were taking her from the hospital to hospice where she would spend her last days in isolation, with only minimal contact with anyone because of the disease. She wore a mask over the nasal cannula which delivered much-needed oxygen, but above that mask, her eyes were filled with tears. She was scared. And I don’t blame her one bit. She only speaks Spanish, and I barely speak ten words of the language. She also has dementia, so she was likely “reawakening” to an unfamiliar place over and over and over, and I couldn’t explain what was going on except through the impersonal voice of Google Translate. I couldn’t even smile at her, not with my mask on.
I wanted to help her, but all I could do was make her as comfortable as possible on the ambulance stretcher and speak my English words as soothingly as I could. Things like this put me in my place. I can’t do anything to stop the virus from raging through the local nursing homes, infecting residents faster than their staff can react. I can’t cause a disease to halt in its tracks, to turn away from the people who are already weak and vulnerable. I couldn’t even bring comfort to one single lady. All I could do was pray that God will bring her comfort and peace in her last days. While this put me in my place, it reminded me of where God’s place is in all of this. Jesus didn’t die to take us from an overall nice world to a nicer one. He didn’t die as a nice symbol or gesture of his affection for us. He died because he was as revolted by death as we were. Though we turned from God and embraced the ways of sin, which lead to death, Jesus hated that we had no way out of it. He hated that we were doomed to live lives in a broken, violent, diseased world—a world where suffering is the norm rather than the exception—only to continue in our hard-hearted separation from God after death. He loved us too much to let us march on to our deaths with no hope. Jesus knew that when he defeated death, those who believed in him would be rescued. We don’t look forward to heaven as this nice place which is just a bit better than earth. We look forward to heaven as the final fulfillment of God’s plan to let us once again live in his joy, his light, his love. Revelation 21:4 (NIV) He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
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About meHi, I'm Rachel. I write adventure stories, but I can't let my characters have all the adventures. Archives
April 2021
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