Rags and Riches

Today I walked through aisles of wealth, down streets laden with luxurious jewelry stores and into buildings filled to the brim with expensive clothing, perfumes, and housewares. There was a Starbucks here, a fancy steakhouse there, and Tiffany’s down the most manicured, brick-lined road you’ve ever seen. As I made my way through the land of plenty, I couldn’t help but look across the street at all of the people buzzing in and out of stores and long to tread down a dirt path to greet my friends in places afar. I realize such desires may sound like madness to you. After all, who would want to trade such lavishness for a dirt road and a village hut anyway?

It’s not that I don’t want nice things, but when I look at them, all I can think about is how in the end having things doesn’t glorify God. Having things doesn’t bring me joy. Sure, I may be able to use some physical/material things in ministry, but at the end of the day God doesn’t need anything from me. He has more than enough on His own, and more than enough power to do what He pleases no matter what I have or don’t have. And I think the craziest part of that is He chooses to use His people to do His work. I’m not worthy of that, but still He chooses to use me.

Shopping, searching for more, always has a way of making me yearn for less. Less junk to fill up my already cluttered apartment, less things to make my place look “pretty,” and less stuff that I truly just do not need. Today I searched through what seemed like never ending racks of clothing only to find something that absolutely made me want to vomit. This shirt.

I ran my fingers over the shirt and stuck my pinky through the torn fabric as if to check and see if the rips were actually present. This ratty, old, torn-up t-shirt looked like something I saw a four year old wearing as he ran down a rocky path in Haiti with no underwear and no shoes. He wore nothing but that t-shirt… and was grateful for it. It was the only thing his mother could give him. The shirt that I saw in the store was on “sale” for $39.99 (it usually goes for $68). For the sale price you could sponsor that child for a month, for the regular price you could sponsor him for almost two. That child could have an education and hope for a better tomorrow, and maybe even a new shirt, but we are too busy dressing ourselves in rags to notice the hurt and poverty that he lives in, and the spiritual poverty that we so often refuse to let God drag us out of.

Some may call me a hypocrite for writing this. I drive a nice car, I have an iPhone, I am able to make this post on this blog while sitting at home drinking a cup of coffee 1700 miles away from the child I sponsor… but rest assured that there is a constant battle inside of me over things I think I should have, things I need, and things I could really stand to let go of. I am not immune to the human condition of desiring more, but I only hope that God would fill that desire and that I wouldn't even attempt to fill the void with material things. I hope that one day I can look back at my life and know that though I messed up some things, God was able to use them, and use me to bring glory to Him.

I hope that as a nurse I am able to share the love of God with the patient suffering a miscarriage, with the grandfather who was just diagnosed with cancer, with the dying woman surrounded at the bedside by her loving children… Those situations and more are not uncommon occurrences at my job. I’ve seen things that absolutely make me sick in the world and at work, but I know that there is a reason I am in the specific situation I am in at that given time, and I am trusting God to guide me in that each day - even if in that day my heart must ache for others who are hurting or for this depraved world, I pray that I will listen to God's voice and trust in His guidance… And I pray that you will too. Let's not dress ourselves in rags when the creator of the universe wants to cover us with righteousness.

The good, the bad, and the ugly… and how God uses all of it.

It is February, 2014. I am 22 years old and I am about to graduate with a BSN. I am dating a man who loves Jesus. Though I'm not exactly sure how this all happened, I praise God it did. This is the time of my life I've always wanted to see. At this point, I've begun to make a life for myself. I have a place of my own, I pay my own bills, and I work my butt off. I don't always have time to do the things I want to do, but I make time for important things, and more than that, the people God has placed in my life.

I've become exceedingly aware of what matters and what doesn't in the past month. On February 4th, I witnessed an awful wreck. Out of respect for the victims, I'm not going to go into detail of what happened, or tell much about them, may they rest in peace…but I am going to tell how it has changed me.

That afternoon I left my clinical - weary and irritated from a long morning of less than ideal patients. I'd already been someone for a confused elderly woman to roll her eyes at as I explained her medications and the importance of finishing antibiotics. I'd already had to clean up multiple rounds of feces from different incontinent patients. I'd already felt like an idiot for blanking on what class of drug Olmesartan is (it's an ARB for hypertension, by the way). I'd basically already been a babysitter, a hand holder, and a just another student who tried to understand where the angry man, the confused woman, and everyone else I came in contact with was coming from that day.

I expected to be home in three minutes when I pulled out of the parking lot. That three minutes turned into three hours all because I heard a crash. When I saw what was making the noise, my heart sank. It was two vehicles colliding and then spinning apart. I immediately felt the need to pull over and try to help, or call 911, or something. I just knew I needed to do something, so I did all three. I dug my phone out of my backpack, pulled over, turned on my flashers, checked out the scene, and approached the vehicles. One person was alright so I went to the next vehicle. One was breathing, albeit gasping breaths, but breathing…and the other in that vehicle was not. This is where I'm not going to go into detail about what I saw because I want to show respect for the human being I saw pass away right in front of me in that intersection, and the one I tried to help, but learned that that person died as well while being transported to the hospital.

As I stood in that intersection surrounded by police, EMS, and firefighters I was still shell-shocked at the scene unfolding around me. Multiple people asked if I was okay, if I needed to talk to someone, did I need anything? Multiple people asked about my uniform that I was still wearing from clinical and what kind of nurse I wanted to be. All of these questions served to distract me from the tragedy that had just happened, and at the moment, I was fine with that. In the next few days, I realized just how greatly it had affected me. My heart was not as strong as I thought. The whole time I was there, people kept saying, "Oh, she's going to be a nurse. She works in an ER, she's seen people pass before." But when I see people pass, it's because they are already in a hospital with a problem that could potentially be fatal. I didn't see the initial event that brought about their death. When I see patients in the hospital, I know that there is a possibility that they may die. When I am driving to my home that is three minutes away, I don't expect that at all.

Thursday morning I drove to school. On my way to school I saw someone run a red light. When they ran that red-light, I was immediately back at the accident scene watching two souls live out their final moments on this earth. I cried. And for those of you who know me, I don't cry very often. That afternoon I called my mom. She talked me through what normally happens at a scene like the one I saw (she's a paramedic) because she has seen it all before. She told me I did good. She told me I did what I could, and she told me that sometimes all the medical equipment and knowledge in the world just isn't enough to save people if it's truly time for their souls to vacate this planet. I knew she was telling the truth, but it took until we did our disaster drill with the nursing school for me to realize she was right.

During our disaster drill we learned how to triage patients, how to label them as needing immediate care, delayed care, having minor injuries, and simply being dead. We learned to have the minor injuries wait, treat the worst patients first if they were viable, and leave the dead to God. Although it was a drill, I finally understood that I really did do all I could with the extremely limited resources I had. I'm still not sure exactly how God is using what I witnessed that day, but I am very grateful that He allowed me to be a peaceful presence to two souls as they passed from this world. I am very honored to have gotten to be there for those people, and it is something I will not soon forget. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and I pray often for all involved in that accident.