Thirst

From fray.com:
It is the most appalling, awful thing I have ever seen. (My father) is all there mentally – he's even the same man – but his fully functional brain is trapped atop a body that has betrayed him in every conceivable way.

And in the weeks that followed the initial rush to the hospital, the panicked phone calls, the explanations and the meetings, when things slowed down enough to let me sit in my car and sob, I sat in my car and sobbed. On a bitterly cold January morning – 3:30, 4:00, I forget – I sat in my car in an empty hospital parking lot and mourned the loss of every illusion I had ever held.

Things don't work the way we've been told. The good aren't rewarded, and the bad aren't punished. Every line we're fed, every assumption we carry from day to day, every happy story we're told in civics class and Sunday school is a complete and total lie. No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, no matter how much effort you put into doing the right thing, it can all end on a hospital bed with thick, viscous phlegm running out of your mouth because you don't have the muscle control to swallow it.

This is not a revelation. Any thirteen-year-old can tell you the same thing. But the closeness of it, the completeness of it, has stripped me clean of any hope or faith or belief in the beneficence of God or fate or the universe. I am angry, still, in ways I have never been angry before, enraged by the thought that everything I hold dear can be taken from me without reason, warning or cause. There is no one to scream at and no one to blame – it's just the way things are.

And that sad reality has left me furious, spent, and broken.


I wanted to write a thought about hopes for the new year. But what about those who have no hope? What am I going to say to the guy who wrote this article? Will I be able to reach those who are "furious, spent, and broken"? How? Do I really believe in the supernatural power of the God I love and serve?

The world is an ocean made up of billions of individual people, many leading lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau). Each person has his/her own world of people, places, experiences and emotions. Although at times it may not seem like it, every single person we meet is living life, experiencing emotion, and searching for fulfillment. People are crying out for comfort to soothe their pain, answers to put to rest their questions, and satisfaction to end their longing. We have what they seek.

Guys, let's pray about maybe calling up some hospitals, especially children's hospitals, and finding out when their visiting hours are. Let's get to the places where people are seeking God, and let's bring them to Him.