Florence Nightingale once asked her students, “Did you ever think about how Christ was a nurse: and stood by the bedside and with his own hands nursed and did for the suffering?” (Widerquist as cited in Shelly, 1995). Nightingale envisioned caring for patients as a ministry.
Nurses are called to care for and minister to God's people in all circumstances. Nursing as a discipline grew out of a Christian understanding that the human person is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27); nursing views the person as the unity of mind, body, and spirit. Christian nursing is a ministry of compassionate and informed care for the whole person in response to God's grace toward a sinful world, which aims to foster optimum health and bring comfort in suffering and death for anyone in need.
I’ll never forget the last minutes I spent with Oscar.* He was 92, had cancer and was a widower with no children. Oscar was a strong Christian Swedish believer in Jesus. Toward the end of the evening shift, when it became clear he would not live through the night, I stayed after my shift to sit with him because I didn’t want him to die alone. I sat and held his hand as he drifted in and out. Right before he died, Oscar became very lucid, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Never forget God called you to care for people as Jesus did. To represent Christ's love...and that those nursing shoes walk on holy ground.”
These profound words have helped me become aware of God's rhythm of love and grace, to express faith with my lips, and also with my hands and feet. Nurses can experience God's will in their lives as they follow Jesus. God's will for us is to discover the gifts he has given us and to fully use them as we live to reflect him. The apostle Peter's words are beautifully clear and simple: “Whoever serves, let it be with God's strength.” (I Peter 4:11, NIV). That’s a fortifying thought for us as nurses whose calling is to serving people in all kinds and in all situations. We do this work on holy ground.
*name changed
Jone Tiffany, DNP, CNE, was an associate professor of nursing at Bethel University, St. Paul, Minnesota, when she wrote the article for JCN from which is post is excerpted.
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