WAITING ROOM
Recently I was waiting in the patient’s lounge at a leading hospital in the area.
That’s a place where patients and their families may gather apart from everyone in the
Main Lobby area prior to being called to actual procedures somewhere in the giant
central core of the hospital.
We were told we would have a three hour wait the way things looked at that
moment, so we settled down to do just that - wait for several hours. We had all eaten
breakfast and it was still early so that did not interest anyone.
I had experienced that type of holdover before. I am told I actually caused one of
several hours for some people by overstaying my use of the operating tables and staff by
several hours during my aorta repair visit. Someone else had to wait several hours
because of me , so found t easy to put myself in an acceptance mode; picked up a
magazine and started to read.
It occurs to me that much of living the Christian life in the troubled world of today
has to do with this type of waiting. The scriptural reference using the words “wait upon
the Lord”, of course, has a totally different connotation that tells us we have a duty to
“serve” Him. I see another type of “waiting patiently”, in one sense, in a room set apart
from the main waiting areas and surrounded by others in need who are also awaiting a
time when they are to be called to something special being done on their behalf by
dedicated doctors, nurses and technicians of various configurations.
No doubt the room in which I sat contained people who were praying for
themselves, and family members praying on behalf of each other in moments ahead
when their name would be called.
I did not notice anyone being particular agitated or nervous. Some were reading
even though the magazines were old. Two small children sat for a few moments at the
pair of computers at one side for amusement, but nether seemed interested in the games
those machines offered so they sat and fidgeted as children will do, but they we
well-mannered for the most part.
We were racially different, but our purpose was the same - survival.
I had no way of knowing how different we may have been...black, white, some of
Hispanic heritage and several with Asiatic features. Yet, intent on our purpose in being
there, we sat quietly; exchanged magazines and newspapers from time-to-time, some
were watching a TV set in one end of the long room. but the point is that, in our time of
mutual need, we got along very well. Some of us were reading about racial and
nationalistic excesses in the magazines we held in our hands, but there was an overall
aura of understanding among us in our mutual time of waiting to be called.
Waiting room stays need not be dull at all, I find. By observing others we see
ourselves in a new, more appreciative light because there is always someone there who is
worse off than we.
A.L.M. March 22, 2002 [c530wds]
