This week has been like most others...yet, it's seemed more intense in a lot of ways. Maybe it's the the fact that I seem to keep getting the most difficult collection of "mentally challenged" patients on our floor (and sometimes I wonder, in the whole hospital!) Or maybe it's the fact that I've been praying that God would continue to give me the patients he wants me to meet and bless. Somehow, I believe the latter is true! ;-)
As I've been learning over the years, "Be careful what you pray for, because you just might get it!" Usually when I'd get report and they would tell me all the horrors of the night, or that they had to call in security because "so and so" was so out of control...I would inwardly groan! "Why me, Lord?" But I've been coming to realize more and more that those are just the kind of patients I need...because they need me...well, they don't need me...they need God!!!! And while most of the nurses throw up their arms in despair, or resort to using restraints and drugs to keep things manageable....(and I have to admit, a little "Ativan" does go a long ways)...each day God is teaching me to see more than flailing arms or flying cuss words...He's teaching me to see bruised bodies which mask broken hearts and bleeding souls. How my heart cries out for the pain and suffering that so many of them are obviously experiencing...how my heart longs to help there be healing and wholeness. But only God can do the healing...I just keep praying that He'll guide my hands and my words...that they'll see Jesus in me, that they'll see someone who truly cares!
When you deal with soooo many people every day...People that do little more than cry and cuss and complain and some that even try to milk the medical system, it's easy to stop seeing the heart, but rather just see room numbers, or just more chores to tend to! (One day this last week, I took care of almost 15 patients, when you include what I started with, who I discharged, and who I admitted! Talk about getting dizzy...I would be like, "Now are we talking about 178 bed 1 or 188 bed 1?") Sometimes the amount of people we deal with daily can be staggering!!!
And so my constant prayer I have to keep praying is, "Lord, keep my heart tender! Help me to see as you see, help me to love as you love! Help me to look behind the actions and see the deeper spiritual needs of the heart! Open opportunties for me to share YOU!!!!"
Yesterday as I was tending to one non-compliant character who is slowly dying of AIDS, she was swearing at God, at how he could let "these circumstances" happen to her. "God loves you!" I told her softly. She began to cry...and the swearing slowly ebbed away. "He did me wrong! How could He love me...I can't ever trust Him...He did me wrong...." She cried harder... I just patted her hand gently as I bent over her and whispered again "God loves you...and He sent His Son to die to save you, He doesn't want to see you in pain....But we live in a world of sin..." But that was as far as the conversation got, as she began to swear again...
How my heart ached for her...ached for her to know and believe the truth! Yet, she is caught up in the lies...caught up in the belief that it is God who did her wrong. And she is not alone! How many people around the world today think that it is God who is causing them pain and suffering, it is God who broke up their lives or marriages (after all, if He'd wanted to, he could have intervened...but he didn't, so it's his fault!) It is God that betrayed them by letting a loved one be killed in a tragic car wreck, it is God that brought this sickness or disease...it is God that doesn't allow their dreams of marriage or a fulfilling career to come true, it is God's fault that their lives are such a painful mess! Oh how misunderstood God is...and the Devil has done his job well...at making so many believe that it is God that is at fault! (When actually, it is the complete reverse!)
Today as I was driving home...while there were bright spots in my time at the hospital, patients that were receptive to God's love, patients that did allow me to pray with them, patient's that believe that God does care, patient's that are searching...I still felt like crying...crying for all those that don't understand the truth...for those that don't know!! How dark the world is becoming...how far away from God we are straying! And yet, how longsuffering God is...He loves us sooo much, and He doesn't want ANY of us to perish!
Yes, while I've made the mistake in earlier years of blaming God for my heart-aches, I'm seeing more and more, that truly He is a God that can be trusted!!!! And I pray I can always say in the future, no matter what heartache, pain, or disappointment that lies ahead in my own life, God did not do me wrong! I may not always understand His workings...but I will trust Him!!!! I don't have to understand...I know, He is doing what is for my best good!!
"So thank you Father, for answering my prayer today...and bringing me the patient's you needed me to take care...even if they were a handful...you didn't leave me to carry the burden alone, and I praise you!"
"All things work together for good, to them that love God and are called according to His purpose." Rom 8:28
"It is good for me that I've been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." Ps 119:71
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