My job is to care for people. It’s many other things and the other tasks can easily leech into the way that I do care for people, particularly my coworkers, patients and their family members. Caring becomes a task, much like other monotonous facets of being an RN in the U.S. Caring becomes something to do mixed in amongst the charting, the rounding, the administration of medicines, the assessments and the fetching of so many items necessary for all of the other tasks not easily reduced to a simple sentence.
But in making caring my job, it becomes simple for me to forget that caring and loving others is part of my life, not a task of my job. And that it is part of my life because the One who makes love possible and cares deeply for his Children lives in me. He first loved me. And commands that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22: 37-39; ESV).
Amongst all the busyness of my day (or my nights rather), I often catch myself needing a break. Yes, sometimes it is a break because I’m tired and sometimes cranky [Apologies to all the coworkers who may have received or receive in the future some of the aftermath]. But more often than not, I can handle the sleepiness that sets in two thirds done with the day – it’s the poor reflection of who He from which I need to take a break.
A stare in the mirror with a recognizable face staring back – I am merely human, one that retreats more commonly to impatience, impertinence and offense when spurred by an upheaval of how I would like to see the day go. And yet, it is not the recognizable face that concerns me – it is the heart that guides the person behind the face.
“As in water reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man” (Proverbs 27:19 ESV).
This heart, though wicked and impure, has been transformed. Washed clean and made holy. Only because a righteous savior and father declared me worthy. While merely human, with mistakes to make and plenty of cranky days to come, I’m sure, I am not able to love on my own. I cannot love without Him. And in the days when I slip into caring for others as a job. Love stops being pumped from my heart and it is instead requirement and responsibility that flow from this vessel.
In those breaks at the mirror, or in the med room (a good place to hide), I am gently reminded that I cannot do this life, to include my job, alone. I was not made to do so. I am reminded that without him I cannot love. And to quit trying and to rest in Him. And that no matter the circumstance, he loves me the same. The same as when I’m cranky, or miss the mark, or forget that we are all given the same gifts of grace, love and mercy. This is probably what I forget most often – we are all unworthy and yet given all the same, gifts of grace, love and mercy.
And in those quiet moments when I allow myself to be still and rest in his presence I am reminded that no matter what, crankiness or praises from a joyful heart, God loves me, sees me and gives me what I need to love those neighbors around me.
The face in the mirror is recognizable and the heart becomes more like him.
It is my life, not my job, to care
I do not know if this makes much sense, because many of you that know me or will, know that I tend to word vomit. But if nothing else, this passage is truth.
Don't skip over it because it's scripture… and yes, I know you do it. I do it too.
1 John 4:7- 21
7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannota]">[a] love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
And sorry, I'm not sorry for yet another blog over 500 words.
