The ER is one of the harshest work environments.
Every shift you are faced with the dramatic reality of how brutal this world is. It's hard to escape when there is a woman standing in front of you, with holes covering her legs, from shooting heroine. You know her middle name because you've see her so frequently. You can remember the date of her last visit, even her chief complaint. You feel helpless. No matter how many times she is told this is killing her, she will go right back to the streets for her next fix.
If you think you feel helpless, know that she is much more lost. She doesn't have the luxury of returning home to a loving family who is ready to pamper her. She lives at a near by bus stop. Her family is the man on the street corner making money off of her addiction. She is not the only one. I see them every single day, and, I wonder if they'll make until the morning.
Every time I see her I wonder. Why us? Why is there this continuous interest in waiting six hours to be told that narcotics will not be administered and that we can't fix her problems? I've contemplated this for months. After the fifth visit we have to get tough with them, the smiling is over. We can't continue to enable their addictions. This isn't emergency medicine she is asking for. This is social work. But there must be some answer.
And then is hit me....
She needs love.
It doesn't matter in what form. She wants to feel cared for, to be taken care of. This world is harsh and self reliance is only so strong. Where do you turn when you just can't continue? You go to the only place with unconditionally open doors.
But, what can I do? How can I help? I sit in that small little medical screening room and feel helpless. I can't touch her. I can't share my faith or story with her. I can't show that, in some way, I want to help. I can't follow her to the bus stop in the middle of my shift. But I want to help. They all desperately need it. I feel like I have tape covering my mouth that is holding back everything I want to say.
If there is something that has become incessantly clear to me, it is this, prayer changes things. I've felt helpless before. So many moments when it is all I can do to cry out to God. I know He hears my cries. If this is the only thing I can do than I will spend my days praying over these crippled spirits. I will pray that I may meet them outside of work and have the strength to touch their lives.
There is nothing more destitute than the look in the eyes of an addict when they are crying for help. They did make the choice initially, but it's now all that they can do to stay above water. It's no longer about the numbing the pain, it's about survival. The only answer they've ever been given, to solve this puzzle, is to find the next fix and remove the memory of the pain.
And yet......I am powerless to touch them. I've become callus by the brutality of it all. Where is my grace? I've learned numerous things from my days in the ER, but none will convicted me more than the look of the addict as she raises her face under the weight of her burdens. I pray every day that these people would know the sensation of freedom that comes when we are relieved from our slavery to sin. I pray that the scars from their past, both physically and mentally, would dissolve under Christ's cleansing power.
I may not be able to do much right now. But I can pray. For now, that is enough. For Christ is always enough.