There are moments in life when we breathe in the scent of hope. And often times it is in the middle of the ordinary. A thunderstorm had knocked the power out in several houses in the area. My friend’s dad had just gotten home from the hospital that day after being out for about 10 days following surgery. He has pancreatic cancer and I sat with his two children in the dark living room with just a battery operated lamp closing in on midnight. No other lights or even a humming of power. In the faint background some type of alarm system was beeping at a high pitch. Maybe it was the stillness and the quiet…maybe it was the lack of television or something else to avert our attention…maybe it was the fact that their father had just gotten home that day from being in the hospital for too long…
Whatever it was…it was a sacred moment.
As we laughed…I got the sense that they would be ok.
In that 20 minutes or so all we had was each other and some dying cell phones and it was more than enough.
Hope filled this dark room that had seen pain and tears in the last two weeks greater than ever before. We laughed at the “Cancer Sucks” buttons they had purchased at the hospital and in the laughter there was happiness.
I am learning to take in those experiences and not let them pass. I don’t overanalyze EVERYTHING, I promise. But there was just something about that moment that was holy.
As if God was right there in that room …
Laughing with us…
Hurting with them…
And understanding exactly what we needed at that moment.
I don’t believe there was anything super theological that we or I was supposed to pull from the living room that night. I just believe that for a few minutes God allowed the pain to be subdued and replaced with the warmth of love. And I believe those two friends of mine who have been overcome with the stress of their dad having cancer were allowed to just breathe easy. Just relax. And the scent of hope filled that room and it was so needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment