Church in the ICU

The Sunday morning after Joanne left for home escorted by her niece we got to meet, Emily was going into her biggest surgery.

Her previous surgeries had gone well and were mainly to clean things out, but this Sunday was going to be an all day surgery and decide what happened to her leg. Truthfully, being in the ICU again reminded me a lot of visiting Esther and brought back some of the emotion about her death I blogged about months ago.

For everyone it seemed very important Emily kept her leg. But for me the idea of infection was just too great. I had watched what happened to Esther and knew my uncle at home was struggling with infection along with other problems that kept him in the hospital. So of course I wanted Emily’s surgeries to go well, but I was more than happy as long as I heard no infection after each surgery. And you see I have never seen Emily in other parts of her life, but I could see this beautiful spirit, so as far as I was concerned that was all I really needed to hold onto. This of course is my selfish point of view, but I also wanted to be practical so I could give Emily support no matter what happened.

And then we came to that Sunday morning. We weren’t focusing on her pain or how to distract her from her pain. And we weren’t making jokes about boys or each other. And Emily’s sound advice for my future, which I still miss were on hold. Emily just had some things on her mind and on a Sunday morning started talking about a Bible passage she really wanted to find. It turned out it was from Psalms (121) and Jen had been thinking of a song based off the same verses Emily was thinking. It was really beautiful.

And Emily who had us all there to give her support and courage and pray with her, she was the one that had the message. I don’t know if she will every realize it. But I think one of the strongest things about her recovery is she really believed she would keep her leg and the surgeries would go well. She did not have any of that doubt that we take her energies away from healing. And as she spoke and told us how she knew being flown down from Uganda and the whole timeline of events made her sure she would keep her leg. Earlier I had been concerned her clinging to hope would make any other outcome too hard to handle – but then I realized it was her belief that was keeping her strong enough to physically handle everything.

So with everyone else surrounding Emily, she was the one who brought the strongest message I have heard on a Sunday morning. (Well she and her nurse that came back after taking her to surgery and gave us a message of her own. And Jen and I going over Hymns…)) and it was a long and emotional day, and none of us knew how to feel when the surgeon came out to report to us. But the muscle flap was working. One day at a time, one day at a time.

In the days after things weren’t easy and their was a lot of pain and a lot of other things to deal with. But that morning 500 stained glass windows would not have made that ICU room more of a church.


Psalm 121

A song of ascents.

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 The LORD will not let your foot slip—
the maker who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, the LORD who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;

8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.