I have only been back at work for two days. Two days.
And yet it already feels as if I have stepped straight into a season of dying.

I sometimes worry that my writing sounds overly negative, but it is hard to wrap soft words around a place where suffering is such a steady companion. The truth is that my work is hard in every possible way. Pretending otherwise would feel dishonest.

When I think of the ship, the contrast is obvious. The ship is full of visible hope. Life changing surgeries take place in fully equipped theatres surrounded by a compassionate community. Joy does not need to be searched for. It greets you at the gangway.

In the local hospital, things look different. I believe this work is life changing too, deeply so, but in a way that is quieter and heavier. Most people who arrive at this hospital are very sick. They did not choose to be here. And every day feels like a battle.
Can the patient afford care?
Is there a surgeon available?
Are the medications afforadable and/or available?
Is there oxygen today?

Even on my best days, “joyous” is not usually the word I would choose.

And now, only two days in, it feels like death is everywhere. A nurse died tragically on her way home from work. Patients are dying every shift. Colleagues lose family members. Patients lose family members. Grief moves through the halls in waves. It feels unrelenting and unfair.

So what do you do in a season like this?

This is where my faith has to become more than something I talk about on good days. In seasons like this, faith becomes breath, something I lean on because there is not much else to hold.

I remind myself that God is not absent from suffering.
He is not watching from a distance. He stands in the ward with us. He weeps with us. He holds every life, every loss, every unanswered question.

I remind myself that even a season of dying is not a season without God.
He does some of His deepest work in the shadows, in lament, in long nights, in moments that feel like too much.

I remind myself that resurrection is not only an event. It is a pattern.
It is the quiet truth that death does not get the final word. Hope can grow in places where joy is scarce. Light can return even when the world feels dim.

I remind myself that faithfulness sometimes looks like simply showing up.
Two days or two years does not matter. God sees every act of love, every tear, every small step forward when everything feels heavy.

I do not have tidy answers. I do not know why this season feels so overwhelming already. But I do know this: God is here. Fully, compassionately, quietly here. And because He is here, this season, however long it lasts, is not wasted.

I am learning (again!) that hope is not the same as happiness. Joy may be scarce right now, but hope is not. Hope is Christ Himself, walking into every room before I do, carrying the weight I cannot lift.

This may be a season of dying.
But it is also a season where God is near.