The hospital “tower” stands silently above the dark city in the very early morning mist and shadows. Up in a darkened room in the tower a man kneels over his wife’s feet who is in a drugged sleep in the hospital bed. The only sounds are the soft whirring and clicking of monitors and pumps, an occasional muffled sound from down the hall or perhaps the sound of a lonely siren from a distant ambulance approaching the hospital.
As he gently rubs her feet he starts weeping, not for himself, but for her. The pain, the loss, more pain. He starts thinking of all the pain this woman has been through. A dad that wasn’t there for her; with all the babies combined-years of morning sickness and nausea, probably close to 100 hours of labor including 30 with the first baby alone, countless sleepless nights with feedings, holding yet another frightened child who had a nightmare, laying on her side of the bed silently weeping for a friend or pastor or a neighbor as she would lift them up in prayer, countless trips to the Emergency Room and doctor visits, rejection by a “best” friend when she had tried to help her, and deep pain indeed when the man rubbing her feet was stupid and self-centered in the earlier years. The man used to joke with her when they were first married that he had married an angel; now he was really starting to wonder. Through all of the pain, she had always been a true source of life to all those that knew her, to all of those that even now were praying for her, always inspiring and comforting and giving everyone a glimpse of true heavenly beauty. When the man had first married her, he had been enamored with her smile and soft curves and her wit and couldn’t believe how much he loved her. Now, in the dark room, it seemed his love for her was so much deeper and wider and of the heart, things the man could not even comprehend 37 or so years before. But right now, if he could do something, ANYTHING, to help her pain, he wouldn’t hesitate.
But as some early morning light started seeping in around the edges of the window shade, HOPE began to fill his heart and even the very room. Soon he would be taking his bride back home and back to “life”, and he couldn’t wait. “His mercies are new every morning”!
