By my count, today was our 16th day at Brenner. We were actually at Moses Cone in Greensboro for an additional day and night, so we've been in hospitals for 17 days. The first 10 were spent in the PICU, and now we've been up on the 9th Floor for a week. In the words of a great song, "this aint no place for the weary kind".
When we first got up to our room on the cancer floor, I was so tired from sleeping in the bright fishbowl of the PICU that I snapped at our nurse when she came in to take vitals after Watts had just fallen asleep. "You know, you have a real knack for timing". I hardly ever say things like that out loud. Desperate times. "I'm really sorry for saying that", I told her about a minute later.
Hannah and I have mostly taken turns feeling worn out and discouraged, but sometimes those moments (hours, etc.) overlap and we clash. It's hard to have energy to fight well at home under normal circumstances; but here, with no space and nurses coming in every few minutes and a sick baby in the crib beside us.... this is no place for the weary kind.
So we're trying to lean into this cycle of continual forgiveness and grace up here on the 9th floor. On the one hand offering space to process, and on the other pursuing the one who's walling themselves in or running for the hills. What a gift to remember the Gospel that says God is so eternally patient with us. We most certainly are the weary kind, and we are learning to love each other better in this season.
A great thought from Henri Nouwen about this subject:
Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another "seventy-seven times" (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love.
May it be so.
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