Last week, I was walking up the road from the port out to the gate to the main road and I recognized a short roundy Liberian woman. She was the mother of one of the adult patients that I had cared for in the ICU and so I called out to her. She turned around and a huge smile broke out on her face. I went to hug this woman, who is no more than around five feet tall, and when I did, she completely lifted me off the ground in a hug of joy! I couldn't help but laugh out loud! I hope she didn't hurt herself.
Apparently it is not too common for there to be patients in the Intensive Care Unit on board. So when we landed not one, but TWO patients in the ICU the week that I arrived, everyone was shocked. And even more strange was the fact that both were dental patients. They had been seen in clinic by the dental team, and were found to have terrible dental abscesses, to the extent that their airways were terribly compromised. Just days apart from each other, they were brought to the ICU and had breathing tubes placed in order to ensure they were able to adequately breathe. The first day I cared for Grace in the ICU, her mother came into see her. Upon her admission, Grace was desperately ill, fevers spiking up to 105 degrees, her blood pressure drooping. As her mother came in to see her, grief etched itself in the lines on her face, and she clutched at her chest as though someone had just stolen her very heart from her.
And then she did something so beautiful. She came and stood beside her daughter's bed, and lifted her arms up in a prayer. She cried out for God to hear her daughter. "Do this for me, O God! Do this for me!" Her plea and the cry from her heart moved me, and I too, prayed a silent prayer of mercy.
Grace's condition made a drastic turn, and while the doctors initially determined she ought to be a 'do not resuscitate' status, she was soon off pressors, and ready to have the breathing tube taken out. The most appropriate description of the situation could only be: miraculous. The next time Grace's mother came to the ship, she walked into the ICU to find her daughter sitting up in bed, awake, and doing her best to talk with a still very swollen jaw. From the woman who had been grief-stricken over her ill daughter, now came shouts of JOY and she literally started to dance around the room. She ran to me and hugged me, and shook her little backside, and then on to the next nurse...joy erupted from her and praise for God's healing flowed from her! She didn't stop, she just kept on dancing....right out the door of the ICU. The translator accompaning her was laughing, and then with a shrug of her shoulders, joined with her and danced out of the room after her!
There is a kind of laughter that I have experienced here that I wish I could capture with words. It is of a different quality and essence. It is a laughter of deep joy, and surprise, and appreciation....a laughter that in some way is a recognition that God has gone out of His way to do something wonderful. This mother laughed and danced...because God had done something wonderful for her. And she was filled with joy.
"Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations, 'The Lord has done great things for them.'
The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with Joy...
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him."
Psalm 126
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