As we left the young couple in the room behind us, the physician turned to me and said “they actually seemed pretty normal.” I laughed to myself, because it was true, that in comparison to most of the patients we see on a daily basis in the Emergency Department, this little family did seem strangely “normal.” They weren’t intoxicated, or have a heroin needle broken off in their arm, or have 4 kids (all from different fathers) following them around. They didn’t come in every week for some “disaster” in their lives that was more likely a psychological issue than truth, and they didn’t reek of urine or month old body odor. They weren’t screaming at us psychotically, or seeking free narcotics, or abusing Emergency services just to confirm the pregnancy test they took at home last night. They were just normal folks.
That being said, it is easy to note that in the month that has passed since I became a medical scribe in the Emergency Department, I have encountered an interesting variety of individuals from all walks of life. The diversity that Solano County provides has only exasperated this statement, and not a shift goes by that I don’t encounter some unusual character.
At first I was amazed by just how much the other scribes, nurses, and physicians seemed to mock these strange patients. “You won’t believe the story Bed 7 told me?” or “Is that your crazy lady in Hallway 2?” …but what I soon discovered is that in a way I had begun to adopt the same approach.
What I am ashamed to admit, is that when I see the 20-year-old girl with a needle broke off in her arm, or the young woman with a recent abortion, or the old man whose liver is completely wasted from years of daily vodka consumption, my immediate reaction is to look down on them. I don’t say anything or act any way different around them: but I know that in my heart of hearts I pity the choices they have made. I am thinking to myself, “thank goodness I was brought up differently,” or “I’m glad I wasn’t born into their situation.”
Yes, I’ve read Matthew 7. I know about the plank in my own eye. And yet I can’t help leaping to conclusions about the sawdust in the eyes of these “un-normal” patients.
But a beautifully new revelation has been coming to me these past few weeks as well, and that is that I’m exactly the same as that waiting room full of “unusual characters.” We’re the same…because whether or not they realize it, we are all made in the image of God!
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NIV)
I realize that this sounds ridiculously cliché in every sense of the Christian faith, but it has caught my breath in many moments, just as I find myself jumping to conclusions about a new patient, and I suddenly realize how tremendously cherished that individual is by my own Heavenly Father! He doesn’t care if they have a needle busted off in their arm from shooting up, or how many guys they’ve slept around with, or their broken family history. God doesn’t care about any of that! And in just the same way, God doesn’t care about the mistakes I have made, because he has allowed his unrelenting grace to overshadow all of that!
So what if there is a waiting room full of broken individuals every day at the Emergency Department? So what if they seem psychotic, or strange, or simply un-normal? Because no matter how “normal” we seem, God doesn’t care. He simply wraps us in his grace and accepts us despite all of our heartbreaking flaws.
What a beautiful blessing!
God is good!
8/1/17
Proverbs 19:21 