Reflection of Glory

Autumn in New England is a glorious thing; autumn in the Berkshires is no less beautiful.  Stretches on vast stretches of rolling green-and-gold hills.  A mountain view on the walk into work that makes me just stop, and stare, and sigh.  My heart sings with the brooks and creeks as they wander along the path God guides them in.

I stop for a moment and stare, lost in the reflection of fall colors so perfect it's hard to know which is reality and which is only the reflection in the smooth water.  A few hundred feet down the current swirls, speeds around rocks, and the perfect image is broken.

We were created to reflect the glory of God.  It's hard to remember that sometimes, living in a world that frowns on vulnerability, encourages us to trust in our own strength.  In a job where I need to present confidence and competence in the first few minutes of meeting a patient, twenty, fifty or a hundred times a day.  Where co-workers tell me that service overseas is a farce of proselytizing and coercion rather than a God-given calling and ministry.  Where genuine joy is the oddity and not the typical.

I love the Emergency Department.  It's not the adrenaline rush, not anymore.  It's reality.  Where facades are stripped away and people show who they truly are.  I miss the innocence of before, but now that I know the reality I can't stay away.  It's not just in Africa where there are the poor, the forgotten, the outcast and the needy.  They are here too, our neighbors and friends, the town drunk, the lady camped out under the bridge, the girl who intentionally overdosed, the young father with a new diagnosis of cancer.  It's just that here in America we try to hide our brokenness.  It may not be physical, not always.  We have to look a little harder to see beyond the mask.

Lord, to these the hurting let me be a reflection of Your glory, albeit still a little broken sometimes.