What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

October 12, 2012

What becomes of the broken hearted?  …

    I stand in the crowd at the doors waiting…

”Out in the corridors we pray for life a mother for her baby, a husband for his wife, sometimes the good die young it’s sad but true and while we pray for one more heartbeat the real comfort is in You, Home Free eventually at the Ultimate Healing we’re gonna be Home Free, Home Free.”

   The officer at the door motions to me, the lone foreigner in the crowd.  I step through the doorway and remove my shoes thinking, “Holy Ground, you’re standing on holy ground, for the Lord is here and where He is, is Holy.”  Bare feet on cold tile, I slip into the offered blue gown and tuck my hair even further up under the disposable hat.  The waiting guard stashes my backpack in a locker and nods me toward the Cardiac Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SCICU) eying me inquisitively as I start that direction, looking for my little one among the broken hearted.  I hear him as I approach cubicle 416, the mournful cry of a baby who doesn’t understand, who is scared, one who feels lost, and alone, at the moment he has no idea, no concept that his precious broken heart has begun the process of healing, no understanding of the work of a skillful surgeon’s hands.  His only understanding is discomfort, the fear of alone, of strangers, of tubes and wires, and being restrained. 

   As a nurse I see it every day, especially living with the group of children that I work with, the broken hearted ones, the blue babies, the ones who fight to breathe well, the little clubbed fingers and toes, the ones who stop to squat when playing to catch their breath, the special medications, the need for careful monitoring of heart rates and oxygen saturations, the scars that run down the center of little chests.  Scars that speak of repairs, of surgeries, of pain to make it better and once again here I am in the middle of watching my all powerful Heavenly Father mend the broken hearts of His babies. 

  This time, and in this place, though I have been nurse to him for so long, I will step into the role of “momma.”  I will hold and love on, comfort, and care for- I will be the one his little arms reach for, and his cries call for.  The one who aches to see his suffering, the one who will soothe and rock to sleep, the one who will, because it is what is best for him, hold him still while they poke, keep little hands from pulling out lines and wires.  I will be the one who speaks to him in a tongue that he understands and kisses his little head snuggled close to my own beating heart.  I will not let him have his way because it is not what is best for my little broken hearted one, and I will pray.  I will pray hard that his heart will be strong, that it will respond well to the increased flow, that it will heal, that his little heart will be whole once again.  Yes, he will need more surgery, this process is not done yet, he will have more hurt and more suffering ahead but right now we will focus on what is in this moment, this breath- this heart beat. And I will remember always that my God is the one who binds up the broken hearted.  He is the mender of souls, the one who longs to rub healing ointment on the wounds of sin and pain, leaving scars that will remind us of His faithfulness, of His love, and care and the provision that would take us, the Broken Hearted ones, and love us enough to be scarred for our salvation.

  So as I enter the curtained off cubicle, my bare feet on this holy ground of healing where my God is binding up broken hearted babies, a little boys tear filled almond eyes meet mine and the hands reach, and I reach back slipping in as close as I can to encircle his little body that is covered in wires and lines and tubes with hands that will hold him, hands that will not let him go, hands that will sooth him to sleep because right now I am once again reminded that this is what becomes of the broken hearted…Jesus loves them so.