Ironically enough, I have been profoundly influenced by this statement and it has remained on my mind since I heard it for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

Something occurred to me this week, I believe it was as I feeling under a patient’s bottom to see if he had, again, wet his bed through to the sheets. I was stopped dead in my tracks when I realized that I have not been approaching nursing - my calling - as what it truly is.

I have spent my whole life preparing for “my ministry” and listened to Sunday School teachers, pastors, and professors at Liberty tell me that I didn’t have to be a missionary in a foreign country or live in a mud hut in Africa… everyone could be a missionary anywhere they happen to be. Limited life experience (and probably at many points a lack of understanding of Who God is) led my mind to an image of me working at Chick-Fil-A (because I did at the time) and holding up the drive-thru to preach to every customer that I met. That’s what missionaries do, right? They preach.

There are a lot of things I could say about a lot of things related to this topic that I have had to be reminded of by a gracious God (Who, undoubtedly, has a sense of humor) time and time again. I could chase the rabbit that is “stop worrying about your ministry that is to come and start ministering where you are” or “aren’t we called to be uncomfortable and go to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)?” But that is not the knowledge that profoundly influenced me this week.

After a whole albeit short lifetime, I was psyched to learn that my calling and my ministry would be nursing. I remember thinking, “COOL, I won’t have to wonder how to serve people. I’ll be serving people as my job all the time. That gets me all my ‘love and serve others points, right?’”

WRONG.

The Lord sees my heart (1 Samuel 16:7). I have taken out my red pen and marked “serve others” off a hypothetical to-do-so-you-feel-good list after every twelve hour shift that I log. But last night…oh last night. I was in a patient’s room, feeling his soaking wet sheets that had been changed less than an hour before, looking into his face and wondering what all his confused, delirious eyes had seen in his life when I realized that I was seeing this all wrong. All wrong, all this time. Serving for the wrong reasons and hoping for an ideal result, expecting God to bless my works. I felt like all the life was drained from my body and I stood there for a second wondering where my perception had become so skewed. Was I even doing what I was supposed to be doing? I begged God for an ounce of clarity. 

And what I got instead was blessing. God filled my heart and soul with the blessing of serving this, His child. My heart has been touched numerous times in this line of work. I have been moved to tears and thankful beyond belief for the things I have learned. But last night I was brought to my knees and overwhelmed and humbled that I would be given the honor of caring for this patient… and all of the patients that I have been so quick to overlook as children of my Father. Their Creator.

I am quite sure that there will be moments in my life as a nurse that “honor” will not be the first word that I find to describe a shift or certain patient. But I’m thankful that God opened my eyes and my heart to what I’m really called to be doing: serving these patients and loving them…when they smell, when they’re hateful, when they don’t even know who they are themselves. Being blessed by the chance to be the one that is there to be His hands and feet when they need healing on so many levels. And to learn from the ones who are praising God as much on the day they find out they have six months to live as they were on the day He saved their souls. Praise the Lord. Thank You for the profound influence.