Is Your Hospital Room Full?

My wife and I were watching television the other night and the show was set in a hospital. It had a strong storyline; the doctors were all very caring and even good looking. But something just did not seem real to me. It wasn’t that I have never been in a hospital. I have had lots of family and friends who have been in the hospital and the sets looked real enough. It was not that I do not know caring doctors. I do. I know lots of them in fact. I even know some good looking doctors, though not as many as the show had.

I watched the television doctors speak to the lonely family member sitting by themselves in the waiting room. I saw them be the one their patient turned to when they were scared and emotionally vulnerable. I even watched while these actors sit in the room with a patient because they had no one else. And that’s when it hit me. That was what seemed so unreal to me. I did not relate to the loneliness or the pain of having no one with you in a time of crisis.

My experience has always been one of waiting rooms full of family and friends; of visitor sign-in sheets full of names, and lots of support. I see many people asking what they can do, babysitting children, bringing food when people are released, crying together, holding hands, praying together. But I know there are people who are alone in those times. They do not have the support groups I am used to seeing. So I began to wonder why.

It is not that I or my friends are nicer or more popular than other people. It is that I am part of a community of faith that believes we are family. So we show up for each other. We help each other. We care for each other. I am there for them. And they are there for me.

So it leads to the question: who will be at the hospital with you?

If you would like to know more about belonging to a community of faith that will be there, write me at steve@hopeforlife.org or join the blog discussion at www.hopeforlife.org.