On The Throne and Close at Hand

Last Friday, I started my Critical Care rotation in the ICU. I was apprehensive, to say the least. As I drove to the hospital with the sun rising in my rear-view mirror, I just remember thinking,

Lord help me to remember that your kingdom is not a far away place high in the sky. Help me to remember that it is the Unseen Reality that defines my day. May the ICU today be that rock pile on Patmos, where John was suddenly in the Spirit and ushered into the throne room of heaven. Remind me that all around the floor, and even within each patient's room, your kingdom is breaking in. Surrounding the bed and ventilator and countless IV drips are twenty-four elders, four living creatures, and a multitude of the heavenly host declaring that You, Lord, are holy, worthy, and glorious.

Truthfully, my day was a lot less intense than I expected, and I didn't think twice about that morning prayer until I was about 6 hours into my shift. But standing there, washing my hands at the sink at the nurses' station, that prayer from hours earlier came flooding back. This Revelation 4 picture is the Unseen Reality of my day!

So, fast-forward to this week. Yesterday morning, before my shift and after reading Revelation 4-6, I wrote "on the throne" on the underside of my wrist. My watch covered most of it, and I'm not sure that anyone on the unit noticed it... but I did. Every time I washed my hands, put on gloves, or reached for a chart, that truth caught my eye and ministered to my heart. Holy cow, did it ever minister to my heart. Here was my takeaway:

In a world where a father who steps in to protect his son is beaten within an inch of his life with a crowbar, where Traumatic Brain Injury isn't just a diagnosis on House, where no amount of medical sedation can ease the neurologic agitation and physiologic thrashing that ensues, I need to know that there is Someone on the throne. In the midst of alarming ventilators, beeping IVs, Rapid Response calls sounding over the intercom, patients groaning and families crying, I need to know there is Someone on the throne before whom the sea is smooth as glass and clear as crystal. And when I'm at my wit's end, when there's nothing else I can do to "fix" things, I need to know that the prayers I offer don't fall on deaf ears. Not only are they are heard, but those prayers are smelled as a pleasing aroma by the One who sits on the throne.

And that throne, that throne and the sea and the rainbow and the bowls of incense and all those things that I "need" to know are true when things feel so shaken up, that throne isn't in some high-in-the-sky, far-away place. That throne is here, among us. That throne is sitting among the the rocks on Patmos, and that throne is squeezed into my patient's room, into the ICU waiting room, into the cafeteria, into my car, into my apartment, into my classroom, into a Seven Crowns houseboat, and ultimately into my heart.

That, Emily, is the Unseen Reality that defines your life.

Someone is on the throne, and that throne is close at hand!