Note: A nurse shares an experience with a patient that showed her that being ready to give spiritual care allows God to work powerfully through her and watch him work in others.
I was working in behavioral health on the adult psych unit on the 3-11 shift. This one night we had had a crazy shift, and we were a little understaffed. (Wow, that’s a surprise in nursing.) About an hour before the end of the shift, we got notice that a new admission was coming, a woman being admitted for a suicide attempt. So, like everybody, you're tired, it's late. I've got kids at home. My husband's waiting on me. I'm thinking, I just want to get out of work on time.
But at that particular time, I’d been studying the Gospel of John and the life of Jesus. The night before Jesus was betrayed, he told his disciples, he wanted them to “love one another as I have loved you.” And I thought, how would Jesus love in my nursing situation? How would Jesus respond here? So I decided to volunteer to do the admission. I knew I’d get off at least a couple hours late, but I just felt so compelled. I saw this as a way to love my colleagues.
The new admit arrived: she had breast cancer. She’d had a double mastectomy and was undergoing intense chemotherapy. She'd lost all her hair. That day she’d been alone at home and was so sad. She went into her garage and started her car--she was trying to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. But when she began to feel sick, she got frightened and called her husband. He took her to the emergency room, and she was sent to our unit.
This woman was so sad. It was such a difficult situation. And I realized that this needed to be a gentle, slow, careful admission, that I needed to be fully present. I needed to slow down because this woman needed gentleness, she needed care.
As I started doing the physical assessment, she began to relax. At first, she wouldn't talk, but gradually she started responding to me as I asked about physical issues and things. I discovered that she worked at a church and that she was feeling so terribly ashamed.
She said, “I just never should never done this. I feel so ashamed.” She said that since she had had the double mastectomy, she and her husband had felt very estranged from each other. It was hard for her to talk to him because she felt that as a woman, she was incomplete now.
I just listened and tried to be present. The thought came into my head that Jesus knows what it's like to face death. Jesus faced death in a horrible, physical, cruel way. This woman had her breasts cut off. Her hair was gone. She felt awful. This woman had told me she goes to church. She knows Scripture. And I really felt prompted by God, so I said very gently, “You know, Jesus knows what it's like to face death. He knows. I think he understands what you're feeling.” And she just started sobbing, a sort of this surrender kind of sob, like, Oh my gosh, you're right.
Then I said, “Could I just ask Jesus to be with you right now? I don't have to, but would you like me to pray?” She nodded her head, yes. And so I said a short prayer. It wasn't anything long and detailed. I asked Jesus to be with her right now, and to show her how much he loved her, to be with her in the coming days, for her to know that he was walking beside her and for her to know that he understood what she was going through. And she said she felt a sense of relief.
Meanwhile, her husband had been in the waiting room. I went to talk to him, and he was terrified when I brought him into her room. I explained the hospitalization process, the visiting hours. And I'll never forget-- he was standing in the corner of the room across from her, and you could just sense the distance between them was like the Grand Canyon. He kept his eyes down and she kept her eyes down. The awkwardness was so thick between them.
I looked at him and I felt so compelled to help these people connect. So I said, “It's okay to hold her.” And he just started bawling. He sat down on the bed and they embraced each other. That was such a sacred moment. Later, he came out after she had fallen asleep. I’ll never forget the sense of relief on his face, too.
That night, I recognized that by being organically spiritually prepared, I was ready to sacrifice and stay late. So I got to be a part of this incredible sacred experience. I got to be part of Jesus telling this woman, I know your pain. I’m with you. I want to help you. And I got to be a part of helping this woman and her husband physically hold each other, emotionally embrace each other. And I'm not sure I would have would have been ready for that if I hadn't been reading and meditating on God’s Word, if I hadn't been prepared.
I think that's part of being organically prepared. That's part of being spiritually alive. That's part of being in those sacred, special moments where we get to give extraordinary spiritual care.
What to know more being organically prepared to give spiritual care? Listen to NCF’s Following Jesus in Nursing podcast. This post is excerpted from season 2, episode 2. Learn how to be prepared for the moments and patients God intends you to care for in this holistic way.
