Caprigalli Haven » nurse http://caprigalli.com My life as a Christian, wife, mom, nurse, animal lover, gardener and any other hats that fit me at the time. Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:19:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 Kindness http://caprigalli.com/kindness/38/ http://caprigalli.com/kindness/38/#comments Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:15:37 +0000 Sheryl R. Helms http://caprigalli.wordpress.com/?p=38 I am a nurse.  What comes to your mind when you hear that word?  Nurse.  Caring, kind, compassionate, empathetic, selfless?  Most people would describe us using those terms.  Over the past couple of months I have been stuggling with fulfilling that ideal.  How can I have empathy when I see the same people week after week come in with drug overdoses or abscesses from popping heroin?  Or the “entitled” crowd who feel we owe them pain medication and a hot meal after calling 911 for a sore throat, then want us to courtesy fill their antibiotic prescription and taxi them home and then get angry an belligerant when we say no to any of the above?  Or the moms who say they can’t afford the $4 antibiotic at Wal-Mart for their kids, but smoke 2 packs a day?  Or the chronic asthma patient that won’t buy inhalers, but comes into emergency to get a nebulizer treatment and then calles us incompetent when we take too long because she wants to go smoke?  As a nurses we are screamed at, spit on, hit, manipulated, lied to, and called names, all by the people we are supossed to love and be kind to. 

I have always prayed before work.  I pray for my patients I will have during the day.  I pray for myself and the doctors who will see them.  I pray that I will be able to treat each person as I would treat Jesus himself.  The struggle I am having is that I am finding it more and more difficult to see these people through Christ’s eyes.  I am being hardend by repetition.  I look at a young prostitue with missing teeth and scabs all over her face who is sleeping off a meth high and have a hard time seeing the beautiful soul and potential that Jesus sees in her.  It’s hard for me to link someone in crisis with someone who has been there and overcome.

As I was singing in church and struggling with this, a phrase from the song we were singing popped out and struck me.

“It’s your kindness Lord, that leads us to repentance”

Wow.  My eyes were opened.  Being a nurse instantly held new meaning to me.  I have Christ living in me.  Therefore, wherever I go and whatever I do, Jesus is there.  I am his representative.  I am to represent what he would do if he were in physical form here on Earth.  Every time I go into a room and treat a patient as lost, undesirable, and hopeless, I am not sharing Christ.  I am not representing him.  But when I treat them with kindness; as a beautiful child of God in need of a savior, I AM representing Christ.  I am providing hope.  I am providing ”kindness that leads to repentance” and change. The Bible says,

“You may think you can condem such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse!  When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. . . Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? . . Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” Romans 2:1-4 NLT 

So, I will probably not see the results of my kindness, but I can know that as I am representing Christ, I am planting seeds in my patient’s lives.  As I represent Christ, he will live fuller and fuller in me and it will be easier to SEE through his eyes.  Thank-you Jesus, for letting me be your representative to lost and dying people.

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