Experiencing Death with Compassion

This morning, I reached the hospital at 8:00, parked the car and put on my chaplain's jacket.  Just as I entered the chaplain's office, Pastor Larry asked me to follow him to the emergency room.  I knew I was in training.  When we entered the trauma room, I observed a doctor and 3 nurses administering paddles on a man's chest.  After a few minutes I heard someone say, "We have a pulse."  But it was soon lost, and the medical team resumed 20 more minutes of  CPR.  I went in search of the man's wife who had just arrived behind the ambulance.  Fortunately, the wife and two children were believers.  They made it very easy for me!  I began to pray, and I kept asking God what He wanted me to do because these people were strangers to me.  Little did I know that I had a different assignment!  After taking the family in to be with their husband/father who had just died, I noticed that the young doctor was just standing near the coffee machine with tears in his eyes.  I went to him and told him that he had done everything possible.  I also reminded him that God decides when we will be born, and when we will die.  He hugged me and said he was learning that.  Then he went on to tell me that in the last few years he had learned that the medical manuals were written by men, and God seemed to have the last word. 

The doctor (fresh from finishing his residency in Tulsa) walked to the cafeteria with me to have breakfast at 10:00 a.m.   He had just finished his shift and would be driving back home to Tulsa.  He told me about his tour of duty in Iraq as a medic on rescue missions.  While there, he saw the hand of God in many men's lives and became a believer.  In the process, he had developed such compassion for his patients (even the enemy).  I told him that was a gift from God, and to never lose it!  His last words were "God often works outside the box of science!"