Morning Thanks--Those who bring love

The young mom has family in our church, so when the accident happened, the seriousness of that young mom's injuries, and those of her little girl, climbed immediately to the top of the church's prayer list. After all, their injuries were burns, serious burns, third-degree burns, the kind that can take months to heal, if they do.

They have, but the healing won't be over for some time, so the rigors of therapy, begun maybe a week or so after the accident, continue. Yesterday, in church, a woman rose to say that this week the little girl was going to be visited by a social worker specially trained and experienced in doing what needs to be accomplished in the little girl's life right now.

She's four, I believe. I don't know how badly scarred she might be, but, given the seriousness of the injuries, it's impossible not to believe her life's journey won't be marked by what happened to her one day in the car. 

What is clear, or so we were told, was that at least one hand has no fingers, a fact the little girl hasn't really noticed yet because of the preponderance of bandaging she's had on her little hands and body ever since the accident. Sometime this week, maybe this morning, some of that bandaging will be removed--a good sign; but, for the first time, that little girl will note that the fire that nearly took her life did take her fingers. That trained and experienced counselor will walk into her room and into her life and, lovingly, try to explain to that child--four years old--that she can learn how to live without fingers. 

The requests for intercessory prayer is a much beloved part of worship at our church, even though there are times, like yesterday, when the stories behind the petitions can obliterate almost anything else that happens before or after. What's apparent with every word I've typed into this white space is that's exactly what happened to me yesterday: the most compelling moment of the service was a scene that hasn't yet happened, but will this week, maybe today. 

The sermon was terrific--something out of Romans. But the picture in my psyche features a social worker, man or woman, who knows how to talk to four-year-olds. Valiantly and tenderly, she accomplishes a job no one would really want to do. In my imagination it's a video, but there is no sound because I can't begin to imagine what I would say. I don't know the words. Even if I did, I don't think I'd be capable of saying them.

Down below my google page this morning, a little banner flashes symbols and thanks. Here it is, unmoving.

I snipped the line when the icon happened to be a stethoscope--it could have been a police hat or a fireman's helmet. Just so happens our son is a fireman. With him in a station, I'm more conscious of what we owe to our first responders than I'd been for most of my life.

But yesterday, and still this morning, I can't help but think about some man or woman, a kind of "first responder" in her own right, someone I don't know, who will walk into a hospital room and look at a badly burned little girl and smile, broadly, convincingly, then try to find a loving way into her four-year-old apprehension to let that child know she's very much alive and very much capable of doing just about anything.

This morning's thanks are for all our first responders, including our son, and also those nurses and aids in a million old folks homes, not to mention a host of hospice workers whose job it is to stand and sit with men and women who are leaving this life for the next. Last week, with a toughened smile, a nursing home worker told me that by her count she'd lost 77 patients. But then, no patient leaves that home alive.

But this morning especially, I'm thankful for a merciful someone who very soon will talk to a badly burned little girl about life without fingers, yet another of the servants all around us sworn to bring home nothing less than love.