More to life than death

My recent post dealt with the idea of death.  And I will be honest, there is a lot of death at the hospital.  However, there is more to life than just death.  The idea of coming to the hospital is to escape death, find health, and go back to living life.  Recently upon my rounds I have been encountering patients who are about to be discharged to return back home and live their life.  This is encouraging.  The hospital experience changes you.  You can't help it.  You are a changed person.  The life you had been living before now, at the very least, includes a hospital visit and more times than not a diagnosis or injury that changes the way you live the rest of your life. 

I think that's the growing edge of my chaplain work.  I feel comfortable walking alongside someone as they process the death of a loved one.  However, processing what life looks like on the other side of their hospital stay takes courage and an honesty we haven't all yet achieved.  As was said in our education here at the hospital, chaplains are, "A touch...in a moment in time."  I'm hoping that when I am that touch in that moment that I am helping someone to see a new future and to embrace all of its ugliness and challenges and to welcome God along that journey.  Sometimes this is what happens and sometimes we never quite get there.  Either way this is true...

​There is more to life than death!

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