Since Harvard was closed this week for Easter Break, I had the opportunity to visit two other internships some of my teammates participate in. On Wednesday, I went to the prison (I’ve visited a few times in the past) and it was a neat experience as always. On Friday, I went to the hospital for the first time. Even though girls from the team explained to me what it would be like, nothing could completely prepare me for the things I saw. If you want sheets or blankets for your bed, you bring them. If you want to be given medicine, you go to the pharmacy and buy it yourself. Each patient can have only one visitor at a time. The building isn’t the cleanest place. The rooms are uncomfortable and most have three small beds close together with three patients in each room. I saw a woman in her sixties suffering from diabetes that was unable to recognize her granddaughter who had come to visit. The woman in the bed next to her was eighty years old and was going to die at any moment with her daughter by her side. In the pediatric ward, we met a three year old boy who had had a hernia, an eight year old who had fallen off a van and had bleeding in his head, and a thirteen year old with a badly broken leg. How should we respond to things like this? What should my reaction be to the pain, suffering, and hurt of others? Should I feel guilty knowing that just a few miles away the healthcare system is completely different, and if anything were to happen to me, my family, or my friends we would be well taken care of? At the hospital I saw tears and broken hearts. I saw unrest and confusion like nothing I’ve ever witnessed. There were more than just physical injuries; the deep wounds of helplessness and despair were staring me in the face. As much as I didn’t want to cry, walking down the hallway tears began to burn my eyes. Even now as I write this, I’m trying to fight back the tears – the same tears that I honestly believe fall from the eyes of Jesus because He cares, because this was never the plan, and because He offers a true hope that some don’t see. I’m learning that it’s good to care and that I should care. I’m learning that it’s okay to cry and to hurt deeply for the grief of others. And I’m learning that I can’t carry their burdens. As hard as it is, I have to take all I’ve seen and lay it before God. I can be bothered and frustrated and upset and those things aren’t bad – I desperately want to have genuine compassion on others. But I can’t hold on to those things. They are too big for me to handle. Jesus can take them all, though. He is bigger than the burdens we carry, and His desire is that we give them to Him. That’s why there is comfort. That’s why there is hope in the midst of desperation. So no matter what happens in life, no matter what comes my way, I rejoice in knowing that my God is much bigger than any problem I’ll ever face and He is more than capable and more than willing to take my burdens upon Himself.
Psalm 55:22 – Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you.
Psalm 68:19 – Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who DAILY BEARS OUR BURDENS.
Matthew 11:28 – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
1 Peter 5:7 – Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
