Lullaby

[photo taken at Cox Arboretum]

I haven’t blogged for awhile. My mind has been tired and distracted. I’ve been putting all my energy into pastoral care—visiting folks in hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices.

Caring for a family that has a loved one dying takes a lot out of me. For more than a week we watched as Mary slipped away. The emotional roller coaster takes its toll. Sometimes you feel like your efforts are so feckless. Yet I know that prayers and Scripture readings and hugs and words of comfort do give strength to the family. My experience of waiting for the time of death to come is like continually listening to an unresolved chord of music……….. It just seems to go on and on without resolution. But God has his time.

A week ago Friday when we were in ICU keeping vigil with Mary, watching her struggle to keep breathing, a song came over the loud speaker—a lullaby. The nurse told us that the song indicated that a baby had just been born in the hospital. A few minutes later the lullaby played again over the loud speaker. The nurse said that meant a second baby had just been born. Mary continued to labor to breathe. Without the next forty-five minutes the lullaby played two more times! We had no way of knowing how many women were giving birth. But there was a good chance that there were at least twins in that number.

The lullabies were songs of hope to me. Think about it: right in the midst of a dying there was birth. In the midst of death came life. Crucifixion and resurrection. God is the God of new birth.

It was three days later that Mary was born into a new world.