As a nursing student, I often feel like I’m invading the space where nurses are working. We students have such a strong desire to help, but we’re not yet equipped to provide full care. Even when I think I’m invading, I’ve learned that Jesus uses us as we are and gives opportunities for him to work through us.
One week, in an NCF Bible study group, we talked through Jesus Heals a Man with Leprosy from Luke 5. I was so familiar with this story from years of Sunday school lessons. I was trying to have an open mind because God always has something new to show me, but this passage felt very cut and dried. The more we talked, we really leaned into “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man” (Luke 5:13, NIV).
How Can Touch Heal?
My heart softened and I started to think about the implications of touching the leprous man--or sick people in general. Particularly among nursing students who haven’t been in healthcare long, we’re scared of sick people. Are we allowed to touch the patient? What if I pull the person’s oxygen tube out? What if I mess something up? In Luke 5, we really dug down into what it means to heal someone through touch, and what God could do through our touch. Our application from the Bible study that week was to try touching our patients--not to finish a procedure, but just empathetically touching and listening without another purpose.
Even though touch felt like such a trivial thing, the patients I encountered in the hospital could go days or weeks without visitors or being hugged by friends. That week, I had a severely injured patient who had just come from the emergency department. She was in a lot of physical pain and her partner had died in the accident. I was one of the first people to interact with this woman. That day, I was following a nurse who had a lot of things to do and I had to just wait.
God-guided Touch in Practice
I took the opportunity to spend time with this patient. I pulled a chair next to her bed, held her hand, and listened to everything she was feeling. In that small space, I got to ask and hear about what she loved about her partner, the good memories she had, how she really loved him. As I sat there and God led the conversation, I was able to ask the right questions and see her gain the peace she desperately needed in that moment. No one else had sat with her or just listened, and God used that time to make an impact. The Luke 5 study became real as I was part of how Jesus works through a nurse’s touch.
Rowan Harper is a nursing student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, set to graduate in May 2024. She serves as an NCF administrative assistant.
Be Inspired! Over the next few weeks Nurses Christian Fellowship will be exploring how 'Jesus Works Through Nurses'. Keep an eye on our social media and blog to read real life stories and instances of nurses bringing God's love and healing to healthcare!
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