Jesus in the Room

While all this was going on in everyone’s heads, time clicked on slowly, never missing a beat, seeming to follow the rhythm of the patient’s heart, while the family waited as patiently as they could for the doctor’s MRI report. As the minutes passed, they kept glancing at the clock on the wall, anticipating the door opening, and hoping it would be any second. It was like waiting anxiously for a jury to walk into a courthouse room after a long, sometimes indecisive deliberation to deliver a verdict that would determine life or death for the defendant.

Some of them engaged in conversation while waiting. Others were deep in prayer. All of them expressed their fear that he might never come home again and wished for his survival. In a sense, Lloyd was a prisoner in his own body, unable to move, falsely accused, with no sign of release. The doctor was the jury, and the stroke was the jailkeeper. The family sat together on hard courthouse benches, some of them pacing, all of them eager to hear the prisoner’s fate because their lives depended on the verdict as well.

In the silence of waiting, all kinds of outcomes went through their heads. How would they take care of him if he did come home unless the paralysis would go away? But they knew the chance of that was beyond reach. Unless . . . But that would be a stretch. There was so much he couldn’t do for himself. Walking, and using his left arm and hand were huge problems. They were problems that required miracles to fix, and only God could help with that. What they needed was faith and patience, both of which were difficult to hang onto at a time like this.

What seemed like hours later, the doctor pushed the door open, walked in, and closed it carefully, the expression on his face solemn, leaving the family to wonder what he was thinking. The family searched his face anxiously as he pulled a stool up to the computer and sat down, not wanting to hear the verdict but needing it to go on with their lives.