How they got there was obvious. The white band hugging their wrists announced to all that a blood cancer pushed them over the threshold. This, of itself, was gut wrenching; but another stand out affliction encapsulated these three women. All other white banded patients were supported, in some cases literally, by an accompanying heart who cared. Each of these three women stood solo.
Three individual sets of arms struggled to secure orders scrawled on paper, manila folders harboring their statistics (both past and present, with no future being guaranteed), plastic bags with who knows what paraphernalia inside and Styrofoam cups of water to keep them hydrated.
My heart broke as I realized how alone each truly was. Where was family? Where was friend? Where was even an enemy whose gut could at least pity?
A Bone Marrow Transplant Unit is not a one-time visit. Months, even years, find many return visits. How many times had these three women come alone, left alone and felt alone? How many more times are yet to come?
After asking God to hug these children of His so tightly they could physically feel His presence, I thanked God for surrounding my brother, not only, with our earthly family but also Him, his Heavenly Father. My soul was grateful my brother would not take even a single step without loved ones beside him, but it cried for the miles and miles these three ladies trudge by themselves.
Some visions in life you can’t unsee. This is one such scene. It instilled in the eyes of my heart and soul what I believe an irreparable feeling of mankind’s failure. However, God was not about to let this collapse of the Golden Rule fester in my being. Instead, He opened my eyes to a reconstruction of the word alone.
Before God crossed my path with these three, heroic women, I read the word defining “having no one else present” as alone. Now God has convicted me that as His daughter I am challenged to change my past understanding of the word and begin seeing it as AL-ONE. God calls me to choose to see those three women and I are AL-ONE, over them being alone. As a child of God, I am baptized to stand, sit, walk and even crawl beside hearts and souls in need of a helping hand. What about you?
“…’Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me’.” Matthew 25:40 (ESV)
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 