Stay Awake With Me | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Stay Awake With Me | Previous Challenge Entry
By Matthew Shaner
02/04/15
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It was a warm summer evening in the emergency room. I manned my usual position at the welcome desk, the first person patients would see as they arrived. In this spot, looking out the door, we’d seen many things from violence to death and conflict. I was checking my email when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“No visitors for a while,” a nurse stood to my right wringing her hands, “we have a pediatric code coming in.” She quickly went back to the treatment area.

For those of you outside the industry, a pediatric code means a deceased or dying child.

I asked the security guard to stay with me and get the family consultation room ready as things could turn ugly. The police arrived with the father and the child’s other siblings. They escorted him by my desk, tears streaming down his face.

The mother arrived twenty minutes later, picked up from work and driven in by another police officer. They opened the family room and the father cried out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

His screams still echo in my head.

The boy had drowned in the family pool after the father had fallen asleep.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus goes off to pray late in the night, his followers cannot stay awake. More than once, he admonishes them for their inability to wait and watch. These conversations resonate into our lives.

The temptation towards spiritual sleep is great and varied. It is always easier to stick with the status quo and not push against the boundaries. We’re tired, the kids are crazy, money is short, why add one other item to the list? Think of your friends at work, the family members searching for an answer.

Think of that book you should be writing or that person that needs a phone call. The Holy Spirit sparks inside us as a drive, a still, small voice whispering compassion and direction, drawing us forward, out of sleep, into the new dawn.

The first step out of the dark is never easy. The sunlight is bright, the path is narrow, and it brings true freedom for all willing to wake up and move.

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24 NIV

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