Alone in a Hospital Room

     I awoke from a restless sleep. The clock read 1:46. Wasn’t that the time it said when I came into this room? How long had I been here? Two hours, three hours, five hours? Panic threatened to overtake me. This felt like a dream.

     The blanket that was once warmed now did little to keep my frigid body from chilling. The plain white window-less walls seemed to shut me out completely from the world. I sat upright, dressed in a thin hospital gown and covered in wires that connected me to beeping machines that rendered me incapable of moving.  

     I should call my parents. But I cannot. My phone is sitting across the room.

     I wonder if my friends are still waiting for me in the waiting room. There is no way to find out.

     Maybe I can ask the nurse to check on them. I look around, hoping to find some “help” button by my bedside. There is none. I watch the hallway for someone to pass by. There is no one. 

     I want some of that water the nurse got me earlier, but that’s just one more thing that has been placed out of my reach.

     I give up. I am rendered completely helpless, sitting here alone in this hospital room. All that’s left to do is simply be.

     And at this very moment, I hear the gentle voice of my Lord, my Shepherd: 

     “I delight in You.”

     Delight. I feel it caress my soul and fill my entire being, washing away every inch of my self-motivating, self-dependent stubborn belief that I must take care of myself. Casting away every lie that says I can somehow earn my worth. 

     In this very moment, I feel His delight set me free from my own self that insists on striving for something I already have.

     Sitting here, completely helpless, unable to do anything for myself, the Father says He delights in me. 

 

     For so long I’ve struggled to understand that I am loved simply for who I am. Delighted in, not because of what I do, but because of who the Father says I am. I would hear people say things like they ‘loved my presence.’ They enjoyed having me around, even when I was doing nothing at all. What did this mean? I wasn’t producing anything for anyone. I had nothing to show for. While I did feel their love, my mind could not comprehend why this was so.

     It took me being stranded in a hospital bed for me to come face to face with the truth: I cannot earn my worth. I cannot earn the love of my Father. My worth is actually defined by His love that is unconditional and unable to be earned. He gives His love freely to me. It is a wonderful beautiful mystery to me. But the truth is that I cannot earn what has already been given to me. He has made me a daughter. This is an honor so great that nothing I could do could ever make me deserve it. So all that’s left to do is love Him back by accepting and believing what He says about me. Living in that truth and letting His love compel me to do everything I do. Living as a daughter, not as an orphan. 

     So to those of you who I am sure have struggled to be in a similar state, whether you are job-less, bed-ridden in a hospital room, or just feel you are lacking purpose: Remember who God says you are. Remember that you cannot earn His love. Remember that you are worthwhile, even when you don’t have anything to show for. (He says you are worth dying for.) Let His love be the purpose for which you live, and worship Him by humbly accepting who He says you are.

 

     I was released from the hospital that same evening, with all of the tests coming back clear. It turns out I just had a nasty stomach virus. My friends took good care of me and were waiting patiently in the waiting room for me the whole time. 

     God truly has a way of using all things for good, and I am grateful for the lessons He teaches me even in the most inopportune circumstances. He is a good, good Father.