Before the Sunrise

BEFORE THE SUNRISE


On the way to work this morning there was a beautiful dawning before the sunrise. The entire sky was captured by a mighty hand that we sometimes lose in the madness of life. Everything goes so fast. There is the mother, age 41, who is dying and I stand beside her as the last breath of life leaves. Or the 32 week old baby breathing its last breath after a prayer that never seems enough to help the grieving parents. Or the phone call from one’s daughter that she has lost her job. Yes, that was just yesterday!

We live in interesting times. A time of inauguration and of hope, a time of goodbye’s and travels back to a place you call home. “Good fences make good neighbors,” said Robert Frost. I am sure that makes all the difference in all of our lives. Fences come in many forms, but all are a way of separation from what is or isn’t. Each provides a place of solitude that we need badly from time to time. “To sit and stare,” may be the best we can do today.

Some of the saints have greeted the sunrise as the most important part of the day. It yields new possibilities, some things we try and fail at, others are bare brief incidents that make a difference in people’s lives. In reality we often do not know the difference.

I have been studying Compassionate fatigue recently. There was a conference on it I wished to attend but was unable to go to. Compassionate fatigue is a danger to all of us in the helping professions. What it says is we are “taking care of all the needs of others” but not taking care of our own selves.

This week I had a request for a Bible. When I took the Bible to the patient she was very agitated. “Is it large print?” ” Mam, I’m sorry I don’t have any large print Bibles. Well, I can’t read it. “I guess the Lord will provide,” she said as she angrily turned over in the bed. Well, we have all been there. It is challenges like this that take the energy away, the uncompromising moments when IT is not what we thought IT was !!

Someone once told me we only have so much energy to give each day and when that is gone, that is it for the day. I realize this more and more each day. I see the energy sinking in me as day lingers into the night. But, there are some people who bring us energy, who give us a light to see by, a pat on the shoulder when we need it. I am thankful for such persons. They are the ones that make a difference in our lives. “BE THAT TYPE OF PERSON, OK?”

For all of us, we need to see the dawning of a new day, even if 10 degrees! But it always seems to be better if there is a sunrise or a beautiful beginning even to a hard day, or there is a hug along the way to say, “Go git em…..!” Are you ready?

Bro. Dan