DO you know the tension, but also the sweet, of watching in the nightly hour by the bedside of your sick? To watch, not for money, but from love. As a mother watches by the little cradle, when the breathing of her darling is more than normally quick, and the doctor said there was cause for anxiety, and the motherheart fears the worst.
Such watching is always a sacrifice, especially in days when anxious care fills the heart. Then the nerves have to bear so much. Everything always storms again upon those strained and overstrained nerves, that have no time to recuperate themselves. And then for this overstrained life of the nerves sleep is really the only medicine; that wondrous sleep, when God takes you into His inner chamber and into His darkness, and takes weariness away from you and fills you with fresh vigor of life.
And in such days, to refuse that only medicine, that is able to restore to you your feeling of rest, and to say: “Let the others take rest, I will watch,” in all seriousness, there belongs to this an energy of love and will power and quiet devotion, which no less than alms and prayer of faith has its reward with God.
Such watching is something altogether different from that of the strange nurse, who sleeps by day, and comes for the night, and at the bedside reads her book.
Not that there is not something noble in this, and that this love also should not be appreciated; but yet watching, taken in its deepest sense, is when one is no stranger, but member of the family; when all day long the tension of the sick-bed has been endured; and now, at the approach of night, and while the others go to sleep, bears all the care not only, but all the uneasiness of the sick upon the heart.
Therefore, in such watching there is something of a priestly act. Oneself to keep awake that the sick might sleep.
That priestly wakefulness which also Christ in Gethsemane sought with His three most faithful disciples, but without finding it, when He said: “Could ye not watch with me one hour?”
THIS watching differs much, according to the nature of the illness.
Watching may be necessary with a typhoid patient, who is delirious, and who observes nothing of the offering of love that is brought him. Which watching is therefore so doubly wearing, because as a rule such a patient breaks the stillness of the sick-room all night long with wild outcries; care for the sick one is restlessly continued; and all fear of being oneself infected must be overcome by the power of love.
Different again is the watching, when on the sick-bed much is suffered in unbearable pain or frequently recurring attacks of shortness of breath. Then one would do everything to hush the pain, but stands by impotent to bring relief.
O, there is in suffering such endless variegation. One sick-bed differs so greatly from the other. Also spiritually, whether you watch with one who knows the Fountain of Life, and also on the sick-bed tastes something of the hidden Manna, or whether your patient is still engaged with his own trouble alone, and in the deepest depth of his heart still rebels against his God and his Savior.
Some sick people are so dear, with whom to watch even in part is a delight, so grateful are they for all you do; so satisfied with everything no matter with what result, so almost overcome with the exhibition of your love. But there are also others who exhaust almost all your patience; who take all your love for something that speaks of itself; who leave you no moment’s rest, and want now this, now that, till at length you can do no more.
And therefore you cannot estimate all watching as of one kind, and there are degrees of love and devotion so different, that watching with one demands far more from you than with the other.
But under all these forms, in all watching, the one heavenly thought continues to sustain you: “For my sick one it is necessary, for my sick one it is good.”
NOW such watching is most beautiful, when it may go on quietly, and when a splendid narcotic operates wholesomely upon the patient, and he may slumber if not all night, but yet off and on for one or two hours at a time.
In many cases sickness gives a feeling of uneasiness, and when the evening shadows fall, the nerves of the sufferer become generally yet more restless. Then being alone affects him so painfully, and every time he looks around, to see whether there is any one with him.
And, O, then the reward is so sweet, which God gives you at the hand of your patient, when you see that your presence affords him quiet, and so the contented knowledge that you sit there by the bedside, at length pacifies the unrest in his heart and in his nerves, and from his breathing you observe, that he slumbers.
This then can become so delightful, that in the end you forget the weariness of watching, and you have more joy in the fact that your sick one is asleep, than sleep of your own would bring you.
And when the watcher for a time hears nothing more, and softly on tiptoe approaches the bed, to see how things are, and finds the poor sufferer, with an expression of relaxation on the face, sunken away in quiet sleep, O, then the heart thrills with delight, and then not infrequently he who kept awake gives thanks for him who sleeps.
SOMETIMES even such watching, already that very night, has still greater reward.
Elihu spake to Job of a God Who giveth psalms in the night (Job 35, 10), and he who in watching was permitted to hold converse with God, has well understood this word of Elihu.
That quiet watching, when everything in the house is at rest, and the patient himself at length went to sleep, brings, with the dusk of the turned-down light, frequently such sacred emotions to the soul.
One is then so altogether alone, and yet not lonely, for especially in such quiet nights comes One, Whom no one sees, to watch with us, and to watch over our soul.
The seriousness of life is then all around us. That sick-bed makes all sorts of anxious questions to rise in the heart. Will it be unto death, or will there still be a return to life? All the memories of the anxious activities of the day pass through the mind. What shall it be again to-morrow? God alone knows. From anxiety you come, and when the morning breaks, you face new anxiety and new care.
So you forget the world; you scarcely think of yourself; the problems of death and eternity take you by storm; and now, in the stillness of night, in that semi-darkness, it seems to God’s child, that his God comes nearer to him, that his faithful Shepherd comes to look after him, and that his Father in heaven, full of divine compassion comes to sustain him, to renew his strength, and in spite of all that weighs upon his heart to comfort him.
AND in that sense watching is sometimes, O, so sweetly enjoyed among us.
Not when one reads a novel to keep awake. For all such reading diverts you from your patient, brings you into another world, and leads your thoughts out to strange fictions.
No, real watching is when in soul and thoughts one keeps busy with the sick; keeps busy with his distresses; and when in conflict of soul, the heart is turned unto prayer, and the Holy Ghost prays for and with you with groanings that cannot be uttered.
That then relaxes your soul, not by diverting her, but by deepening your life in your God, by directing your deliberations toward Him, and now to find, O, such fullness of peace in His mysterious doings, in His wondrous dealings with your poor sick.
And then of itself comes the psalm. Not to be sung aloud, as though your patient was not to be spared.
No, but the silent psalm, to the accompaniment of the organ of your heart, and your soul jubilates, though no sound passes your lips.
Inner motions in the depth of your heart, expressing themselves in that unspoken language, which even your patient does not hear, but which your Comforter within you overhears.
Psalms welling up in you, because in the stillness of the night God has come to you with His holy breath, and has restored harmony, equipoise in the turmoil of your heart.
A psalm, because peace is returned within. A psalm, because in such perfect confidence you give over your sick one to your God. A psalm, because already in your own soul you feel, that this sickness also will eventuate in the glorifying of God’s Name.
In daytime it cannot be so. Then there is too much going on. Then there is too much that requires attention. Then everything distracts.
But by night this becomes different. Then you do not look for the doctor. Then no one knocks at the door. Then you need not to be ready for him who comes to visit your patient.
And therefore in those long nights of watching, with serious illness, there is so glorious a strengthening of soul. Soul’s strengthening going out in psalms, which your God gives you.
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