Have you ever had the suspicion that there’s something wrong with you? That you need to be fixed before you can flourish?
Or maybe the fault is with others, and they need fixing?!!
Or both!
Well — yes, in fact, there is something wrong. Fundamentally wrong. With all of us.
It has to do with our frame of reference: with how we see the world and ourselves. We put ourselves at the focal point — and that, friends, is the Fall.
As a result, we can’t help but look through the “lens of pathology” (as Robert Coles calls it).
But our Father knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
And our God doesn’t “fix” us. Instead He has taken on our human form - our flesh - and has become the brokenness.
He has finished the work.
He feeds us with Himself.
And restores us to Himself.
So we can flourish as He intended.
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(John Donne recognized that we need more than mere fixing: “Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for, you / As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend; / That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow mee, ‘and bend ; Your force, to breake, blowe, burn and make me new. …” -Holy Sonnet XIV )
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Feeding is a huge part of life in the NICU. It usually falls under the term “nutrition” — but I prefer to think of “nurture”. Because feeding — and growth — involves relationship, not just what goes into the body.
One of the most broken things about newborn intensive care is the separation of babies from their families. Newborns need to be held, seen, and loved in a personal relationship in order to flourish. And even when a baby’s condition is stable enough to allow this, her parents may not be able to be present - due to fear, or geographical distance, or other challenges. We (various NICU staff members) can “feed” the babies - and, eventually, help them learn to feed. But none of us can be the one consistent, loving, containing presence for them or for their parents.
I think this is the brokenness that haunts me most about our work — not the devastating diagnoses, the multisystem organ failure, or the balancing of one less-than-desirable outcome against another. It’s the awareness that when we finally send babies home, although we do so joyfully, every one of them — and every parent— has been through a deeply traumatic experience.
It’s why I hold fast the hope that, in supporting each other, we as a NICU family might provide even a small fortress, a temporary fastness, for our patients’ families to shelter in while they are with us. And I hope, further, that one day we — as a specialty, as a health care system, as a society — can offer more ongoing support.
But I can’t cling to this hope without returning to our mighty-fortress God — over, and over, and over. Because He is faithful.
One of my favorite “F” things is — this flock of sheep feeding, and feeding, and feeding. Six hours’ worth. It’s a feast for the eyes and ears!