The Rainbows of Nursing

My job is not the most glamorous.  The idea of a nurse is a lot more appealing than the work of a nurse.  Most days my job consists of medication, assessing, more medicine, charting and more medicine, oh and lets not forget about the charting again.  Not to mention the amount of bodily fluids I get to look at and clean up.... Defiantly not the most glamorous jobs I could have chosen.

But I would be lying if I said I did not love my job.  Despite all of the smelly, unappealing, and down right disgusting aspects of my job, there is a beauty in it that I would not find in any other profession.  I could probably go on for hours on quite a few topics, but after a day like today, two come to mind.  1) I am grateful for the life I have because it could always be worse.  2)I am grateful that I get to play a part in helping those who are on the receiving end of "it could be worse."

The average person is going to have average stressors, and they are going to display average response to those stressors.  Everyone is going to feel "depressed" once in a blue moon.  Everyone is going to get "anxious" from time to time.  Everyone is going to loose their cool.  There is a whole array of emotions that we will go through.  And there is nothing wrong with that!  But, I get to see people at their worst, most vulnerable times of their life.  I hear the story's they can't always tell, I see the pain they are trying to hide, I feel the sorrow that they can not help but convey and my heart breaks.  It breaks out of sorrow for the stories I cant change, the pain I cant ease, and the sorrow I can't take away.  But it also breaks with immense joy for my "average" trials and tribulations that I have faced.  These glimpses of "it could be worse" I see in my patients are like God's little rainbows for me to see.  His promise that He is taking care of me and He is in control, even when I don't see it.

My job, what I get paid to do, puts me in a unique position to minister to people in their "It CAN NOT get any worse than this" situations.  I hold the hand of a grieving loved one.  I am the "mamma bear" protecting my patient from their actual mother.  I am the cheerleader on the side line dressed in nurses scrubs cheering a bed-ridden pt as he takes his first steps in months.  I am the silent listener to some much needed venting.  I am the presences when loneliness starts to creep in.  I can find a smile when all we want to do is cry.  I am the soft touch when all they know is the hard hand of defeat.  I am used.  I am used by God to be somebody's "rainbow".  Somebody's promise that God hears their cries, feels their hurts and see's their tears.  Somebody's promise that He cares and He is there for them.

I am only one measly nurse.  There are so many more out there.  One's who are funnier, more compassionate or one who is not as socially awkward as I am.  I can not change the world.  I can not fix every problem.  I can not undo what has been done.  But, for 36 hours a week, I get to be a promise.  I get to be a Rainbow to a Child of God.