I worked for the past several days.  The emergency department is a place where we see, among other things, the endless enslavement of humanity.

Enslaved to drugs, they cannot live without the euphoria of Xanax,  Lortab, Oxycontin and other sedatives.

Enslaved to dysfunctional relationships, they live together, sleep together, and have children over and over with different people, because they are lonely and feel that their serial relationships will deliver them.

Enslaved to co-dependency, mothers and fathers sit by adult children who refuse to provide for themselves.  Sons and daughters dote on manipulative seniors who feel their existence gives them the right to abuse and control everyone.

The incapacity of certain diseases, real or imagined, leads many to develop an entire identity of illness, which provides control and attention, but which will never really ease the pain that their suffering has brought to their broken hearts.

And yet, as Christmas bells ring and carols play, I am reminded that Christmas is about deliverance.

O Come, O Come Emmanuel

‘O come, Thou Day-Spring come and chee

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of  night

And death’s dark shadows put to flight!

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel!

Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus

Born Thy people to deliver, born to set Thy people free;

from our fears and sins release us; let us find our rest in Thee.

O Holy Night

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Christmas is about freedom.  And the need for deliverance is never less evident than in the emergency rooms of the world.

Edwin

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