Crisis

It’s been a privilege being a Chaplain at East Surrey Hospital over the last year. It’s been a year of crisis. And one of the things that’s been lovely is to be able visit people and pray with them when others have been unable to because of the pandemic. To be able to read the Bible to, and pray with a friend of thirty years only a few days bef9re she died, when the family were not allowed in the hospital, was a privilege for me and a blessing to them. When I had my own visit to A&E as a patient, Lisa was comforted by the knowledge that if I had been admitted, the Chaplains would have been at my bedside, reading the Bible and praying when she could not. And I know it would have brought great comfort to me too. I have also had the privilege of praying with the Emergency Department and Intensive Care Unit at the beginning of their shifts.. The Chaplains have been doing it every shift change. One of us is there, to pray and, if it’s helpful, to chat with staff. I went yesterday morning at 7am to the ED and 7.30am to the ICU. A crisis brings us together doesn’t it? A crisis brings out the best in us doesn’t it? A crisis makes us stop and think about what’s really important and what’s not. It’s been great to see how the nation has pulled together in the last months to help and support those who are really struggling and to protect the most vulnerable. With the successful role out of the vaccines perhaps the crisis is over. With the opening of shops, hairdressers and gyms, perhaps the crisis is over. And, perhaps because we are beginning to believe that the crisis is over, we don’t feel the need to pray anymore. Yesterday was the last day the Chaplains will visit the ICU at the beginning of a shift to pray. We’ll still be available 24/7, but the crisis is over. so…we don’t need God anymore. God is supposed to be there to make things right. Maybe that is God’s job: to fix the stuff we don’t think we can fix! And maybe God does do that, sometimes. So, in a crisis we need God…to fix it. But, maybe it’s not God’s job, not all the time. Perhaps it’s not God’s job at all. Some people, good people, people we loved and cared for, died during this pandemic. Isn’t God supposed to stop that kind of thing when we pray, when we’re in a crisis? Maybe. It seems to me that the story of the bible is that God does indeed sometimes intervene in a crisis and that he does so, sometimes, because people pray. But he doesn’t always do that. And he never promises to as far as I can tell. Actually his promise, rather than that he will be with us in a crisis to fix it, is that he is with us always. Always. Crisis or no crisis, he is present. Isn’t that better? That God is with s always, whatever is going on? Probably! Perhaps, rather than just fixing things that might go wrong again, God does something far better. Something far, far better. For God holds us through all things. He keeps us through all things. He loves us in all things. And, one day, one fine day, he will make all thigs right. All things. And then we’ll never be in crisis again!