“Remind me again.” I saw the head lights of the oncoming cars pass me by. Their glow reflected against the midnight and the glare nearly engulfed the world outside. I could see all of their faces as they sat waiting to be helped. “Remind me again of their faces. Show me their pasts, their wounds, and their souls that I can pray for them!” One by one I saw faces and with them stories spanning life times arrived in my mind. Each story ended with them seated in that waiting room of the emergency room. My breath escaped me as I said those words aloud in the car, “Waiting… in the ER…” I trailed of and continued to ponder it, “It kind of takes the urgency away… but I doubt they feel less urgent.”
“Remind them again! Remind them that their bodies are fragile and can be destroyed, yet it isn’t the body that is hurting, it is the soul! Remind them that you are not far off, that your heart aches with their pain and that your vision is complete to see past the temporary agony. Remind them of your peace!”
“Not just for them, Travis.”
“Father, it’s late and it’s crazy. It’s so easy to get distracted and feel fatigued. In my line of work, a mistake can be corrected. In the hands of the nurses, the same mistake can be a life. Keep her vision clear, her mind alert, and her soul at rest.”
I continued this prayer all the way home for each nurse I saw so briefly that night. As I stepped from the car I asked a simple final prayer that took me into my sleepless night, “Lord, wake me throughout the night that I can pray for this room and for each child in it. Give me dreams of their faces and give me names and places. Tonight, like so many nights before, I am at your feet to pray. If prayer is greater without visions and dreams, then keep me sleepless all together.”