“Is this… normal?” The medical student watched me intently, apparently wondering how I’d answer.
Image from Unsplash
No one else was around. I’d taken advantage of the moment to sit down and ask how the NICU rotation was going.
The initial response was predictable: “Oh, fine, great!”
And I caught myself thinking “of course they will say that - why do I bother asking?!” But I sat and waited.
“Well… baby X did kind of give me a scare last night.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, “baby X has some kind of scary things going on.”
Then another beat, another breath: our eyes met, and the story poured out. A story of having been alone at the bedside of a new baby who’d suddenly stopped breathing and turned blue while on noninvasive respiratory support. Of sensing time stopping, feeling paralyzed and powerless and alone, realizing the limits of one’s power as a soon-to-be-physician.
And then the plea for reassurance.
Another confident, capable Health Care Provider had found the gap.
And here is what I thought, and am still thinking, much later:
Annie Dillard writes in The Waters of Separation: “It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps, where the cracks and winds pour down, saying, I have never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to walk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.”
So, she says - “stalk the gaps.”
With apologies to Dillard, because this isn’t exactly where she ended up going with that premise — I believe the stalkworthy gaps are those between our scarcity and His abundance, our puniness and His power, our ignorance and His omniscience.
These are the gaps where the beauty of His mercy is most evident.
Where He shows up in His glory, covers us with His hand (Ex 33:22), and whispers softly in His still small voice (I Kings 19:12).
One popular alternative to gap-stalking is gravel-scrabbling: struggling, like the seed sown on the rocky ground (Mt 13:5-6, 20-21), to put down roots in a shallow place, depending on our own resources, where we shrivel up for lack of living water.
The tragedy of the gravel-scrabble struggle is that, while it may start as a valiant quest to get ourselves growing, it soon becomes a despondent settling for the shallow counterfeit offer of “good enough”. Because the glorious truth is that (a) we will never be “good enough” on our own, and (b) the Source is right here waiting to feed us.
“Lord, I rejoice even that I feel my poverty — that way, as an empty vessel, I am better suited to receive Your fullness.” - Robert Hawker (in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans)
“Put your brokenness under the blessing.” - Henri Nouwen
“(We must) delve into the very dissonance that we instinctually try to avoid..” - Balfour Mount
Another common alternative to gap-stalking is, in fact, crap-stalking! Like the seed sown among thorns, “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches” (Mt 13:7, 22) easily distract us. We all have crappy thorns — cares and problems, as well as apparently good things — that tend to snag our attention.
The beautiful truth is that we already have our sovereign Lord’s attention. He numbers the hairs on our heads, He has loved us with an everlasting love and continued His faithfulness to us (Jer. 31:3) — to the point of emptying Himself: letting go of His riches and taking the form of a servant. (Phil. 2)
Seeking first His kingdom (Mt 6:33) is not another chore or task to add to our list of Difficult Things That Must Be Done! It is “only” accepting and acknowledging reality: His sovereignty, His unfailing love, His infinite mercy.
Seeking the Kingdom is … stalking the gaps.
Don’t hide from the gaps - seek them out. Welcome them.
Because Jesus is the One Who has rent the heavens and come down (Mk 1:10, Isaiah 64:1, Ps 144:5) - - to stand in the gap, to seek us, and to welcome us.
Thanks be to God.