How Are Our Vital Signs?

I am near to a family experiencing life in God's waiting room. The waiting room, figuratively, is that place where we feel our lives on hold as we seek to know what comes next. Healing and wholeness? Release? Disability? What comes next is not clear.

We do not like to wait. We'd rather know the plan and execute it. Yet we must wait.

At the heart of recovery from Cindy's extensive brain surgery is the fundamental need to establish stable vital signs. Heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and so forth are key indicators of health. This is monitored from a distance to give nurses a read on the patient even when out of sight. Breathing has been a frequent challenge and is difficult to maintain on her own right now. We pray for breathing daily.

Reposted here from my thoughts written earlier tonight on Cindy's Caring Bridge:

Breathing is essential to life. We cannot live without it. Prayer, likewise, is essential to vitality in our spiritual lives. If we stop praying, or pray only sporadically and shallowly, we do not maintain healthy spiritual respiration. Short bursts of our pleas and gasps of requests will not long sustain a relationship with the One who desires more than our frantic 911 calls. Sometimes we let our words get in the way. We can be our own worst enemy and feel paralyzed that we cannot 'get it right.' We settle for too little. We become content with a diet of mere prayer tweets.

God sees us as we really are, no posing needed. Let us come in humility, giving thanks and praise, laying our deepest desires before the Lord, and trust God to act. Even in our broken, disease-ridden world, God is still in the business of redeeming suffering and restoring losses.

God breathes life into dying relationships and inspires a new way of seeing others in this miracle of life we share together.

After posting to the Caring Bridge this morning, I drove downtown. Stopped behind a car, I was still preoccupied with Cindy's respiratory challenges. My eyes fell on the license plate immediately in front of me:

PS86V8

Just another state-issued stamped plate? I suspected it was code for something deeper. Immediately, I looked it up:

Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord; nor are there any works like Your works. Psalm 86:8

and I kept reading...

I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name forevermore. v. 12

What a powerful Word on the way!

This is the way Cindy prays. With a heart full of praise, she gives glory to God as she seeks to be salt and light to all around her. Salt and Light....to a waiting world. Cindy's prayers are unfettered; words do not weigh them down. We pray for her and with her, joining in one accord that God will continue to provide comfort and healing throughout each day.

Thanks be to God.