Hope and Blue Bracelets

As a parent of a child in the U of I children’s hospital, you are tagged with a blue bracelet as soon as your child is admitted.

This blue bracelet comes with some degree of privilege.  You’re able to roam the entire hospital, soaring through security check points with ease.  You never have to make sure your name is on a list somewhere to be let in.  You just sort of wave your bracelet at every security check point and you’re in.

Before I knew this, I stood in line to check-in until the security person said, “Oh, you’ve got a blue bracelet! You’re in!”

It also is a sign that you’ve got a child in the hospital.

Spotting another blue bracelet signifies a type of comradery as if to say, “I get it,” without any words at all. We’re all kind of going about the same routine–trips in the morning down the hall for coffee in the morning.  Trips to and from the various food courts to try and find a bite to eat.  And endless trips up and down the tall elevator to the various floors we’re all assigned.  And then just waiting with our children in their rooms in between nurse visits, latest updates, blood draws and scans.

I’ve discovered there are certain emotions that also surround the blue bracelet.  If you’re new bracelet-barer, your face can show a fear of the unknown, an unfamiliarity with new surroundings, and sometimes panicked tears.  I’ve seen a number of new patients arrive with mom and dads in tow, recently marked with their blue band. They don’t know its significance yet as their child is wheeled on a bed into their new room.

But after time has settled in, and you settle into a new routine of day and night here.  You’ll find us blue bands wandering around the hallways in our PJS, staring at the artwork on the walls, taking elevator trips up to the 12 floor to take in the best view of Kinnick Stadium. You chitchat with other parents around the coffee pot lounge about how long you’ve been there, what happened to get you there, and when you get to go home.  Once the initial crisis of what brought them here has passed, we enter this new phase  on a slow-moving continuum that swings between hope and despair.

U of I does their best – bright and cheery hallways, child-friendly nurses and staff, and daily kids’ activities, access to movies and X-boxes and bingo games, and even surprise visits from the Iowa Hawkeye basketball teams.  But there is an accompanying sadness everywhere.

“I lift my eyes up on the hills – from where does my help come?
My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth…”

We can do our best to manufacture hope from within, but there is no source of hope like the TRUE HOPE I find in knowing and being loved by God.  I’m doing my best to choose positivity, think happy thoughts, but the true source of HOPE from God is so different than any man-made technique we can try to apply.

I can’t change this scenario. I can’t change the strange journey that landed us here. And while I’m angry this infection got into my son and so drastically turned our family’s life upside-down overnight, it’s a trial He has called us to walk through as a family.   But, I can choose to trust His promises for us that He will never leave nor forsake us.  I trust that He is battling on our behalf and holds all things together in His hands.  I am thankful for promptings of the Holy Spirt, that when I start to feel despair, He reminds me of His promises and often puts a Scripture song on my heart.  I can’t manufacture hope, but I can “put on Christ” and experience the real thing.

“He will not let your foot be moved, He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your Keeper. The LORD is your shield at your right hand.”

This isn’t the case everywhere in this hallway and among the blue-bracelet people.  In the dark, it becomes so apparent where there is a Hope in the Lord and where that light is missing.  Without seeing this contrast, it’s so easy to underestimate the true beauty of what we have in Christ! His hope, His peace, His joy — it is so diabolically different than the lies the world has to offer.

“The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all evil, He will keep your life.
The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in
from this time forth, and forevermore.” Psalm 121

We so appreciate the giant army of prayer warriors surrounding us! Thank you to everyone who has taken this journey with us.

Leah Carolan
Pastor of Worship & Media

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