My eyes sprung open at the sound of people talking. I shut my eyes tight and then opened them wide to try and see where the voices were coming from. The darkness of night was so thick; it almost felt suffocating. It was as if I had a weighted blanket pinning me down.
“Close the north and south-bound lanes down now!” yelled a man’s voice
“Life Flight has an ETA of 17 minutes! Get the bag-valve mask put together, STAT!” yelled another.
I shut my eyes tight again and then slowly peeked out of one eye. I found myself looking into the face of a badly injured man and I heard myself telling him that we were there to help him. I was contorted between the front door of a badly mangled Ford Mustang, the floorboard of the vehicle, and the tree this man had managed to wrap his car around. I was trying to treat wounds, comfort him, and keep him protected as the other firefighters worked feverishly at freeing him from the wreckage of metal that entombed him and his friend.
I shut my eyes tightly again and kept them shut. My mind was spinning between processing the sounds of my own words of comfort to the man, the words that I was praying, the jarring sounds that the jaws-of-life made as it cut through the car roof, and the distant whirring noise of the medical helicopter landing.
My breathing quickened faster and faster and I could feel my heart beating in my chest.
I flung my eyes open and found myself sitting in my bed, enveloped in the thick darkness of night. I saw the blinking red light on my fire department radio that was across the room and I could hear the dispatchers talking to a crew making their way to an emergency. It was just a dream.
Fifteen years ago my fire department crew was dispatched to a terrible car accident where one man nearly died from his injuries. His friend was also badly injured. Haunting pain, poor choices, and a few too many drinks clouded the judgement of this man that we found pinned between his car and the tree he ran into at one hundred miles-per-hour. It took a very long time trying to cut him out of the tangled mess of metal, seat cushions, and engine parts. The image of him briefly looking into my eyes when he would come back to consciousness was seared into my brain.
Thirty days ago, his mother reached out to our fire department through social media messaging. She wanted to share a video of her son sharing his story to a church. And, she wanted to thank us for saving his life. She didn’t know if we would remember her son or his accident, but she wanted to share her gratitude. How could I forget one of the worst car accidents in my career, where the victim managed to survive the catastrophic damage not only to his car but to his body?
As I watched the video of him telling his story, I was reminded over and over again about holding onto faith and hope in hard times. Brutally hard times that never seem to end. He shared his story of his service in the military, his suffering from the war wounds and breakdown of his marriage. He recounted moments of anger and rage but wanting to also live a better life. He talked about wanting to give up and living recklessly. He talked about the accident and how the brutality of the injuries he received and the pain that it caused him forced him to call out to God for mercy.
Broken in pieces with a missing leg and a shattered heart, all he could do from his hospital bed was ponder his faith and his life and figure out how to make things right again. He needed God desperately to not just heal his body but to heal his heart and his mind. At the bottom of his pit he had to claw his way out of the darkness by clinging to his faith.
‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.’ John 1:5
During this time of year I often think of Mary’s journey to the place where she will give birth. The images that we see of this is often of Mary riding on the back of a donkey in the middle of the night. She is surrounded by darkness. Even though she was carrying the Son of God, she was still a human being. Did she have moments of shear exhaustion while traveling to Bethlehem? I know I get cranky on a three-hour car ride. I can’t imagine days on the back of a donkey or walking a long way while being extremely pregnant. Did she experience dark nights of the soul in those moments leading up to Jesus’s birth? Was she frustrated and upset that she had to give birth in a less-than-ideal spot? We imagine in our heads this perfect location, with perfect hay, and perfectly groomed animals, in a perfectly clean stable. Stables are pretty nasty places, even when they are clean. Again, I feel a little disjointed when the run-of-the-mill hotel ends up being more of a dump than what was depicted in the photographs on a shiny website.
Oh, Mary. Mary, did you face a lot of darkness before the light broke forth?
The victim of the car accident clawed his way through his ‘dark night’ and kept that little flicker of light burning by holding onto faith. That little flicker of light is now a roaring flame as he travels the country sharing his story and changing people’s lives.
I no longer wake up in the middle of the night from dreams of seeing his battered body and wondering if he lived or died. That accident changed the way I cared for trauma victims. I held on to my faith of knowing that God really is good all of the time, even when I am neck-deep in sorrow.
If Mary did struggle before the birth of Jesus, what an incredibly joyous moment to be able to see ‘the light’ of this world actually being born. Surely that light must have wiped away any fear, or anxiety, or overwhelm she would have felt. I wish I could have been there to witness the ‘light of Jesus’ being turned on on this side of heaven.
This is the week to fathom faith and to connect that faith to hope. Because when we do that, joy pours out like a rushing river. Even in the darkness of night, the darkest night of the soul, faith and hope keeps the light shining. It may not appear to be a bright light, but just wait! Joy comes in the morning! And the morning brings glorious light to all.
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