nursing + entering in

Nursing school has been rough for a lot of reasons, but mostly I think because I've come to the deep realization of how hard and truly heartbreaking sickness can be. When I get asked why nursing I always say "I want my career to bring me purpose." I don't say that I expected my experiences to personally effect me so much--- every part of me.
I never expected to leave a patient's room and feel overwhelmingly inspired by their immense joy outside their circumstances. I couldn't imagine how much a terminally ill cancer patient would teach me in her final months. But I never expected to have such a deep desire to fix people, and make them well, even when I know I have no control. I guess I never processed it. And I never expected to feel hopeless when I came to terms with the reality that I could not make them well.
What I've really learned about nursing is that it truly involves entering into life with people. Walking through the happy moments of a birth and the terribly hard moments of cancer pain. So much of my life I've spent running away from discomfort, pain, and suffering. We all have. It's part of human nature-- we do whatever we can to protect ourselves from hurting. And in less than a year my job will be about people who are hurting, suffering, and struggling. I've learned that I don't want to run away from the discomfort, because I will not escape it. And really, I don't think it is what God wants us to do. Because with a mindset of fixing I will always be a failure. I believe with God there is hope, healing, love and peace.
There will be a time when there is no more suffering, no more tears, or hurting, but for now I think my job (literally and figuratively) is to enter in to the suffering and stay with the people who need it most. I can only hope and pray that my actions, words, and presence will meet them where they are.
I cannot fix people, I cannot wave my magic wand. I cannot tell the mother of my 18-month-old patient with a chronic disease that will end her life too soon, that I can make it all better. I can, however, be there with them, enter in to their lives for a long time, or just a few hours and love them. Love them in their hurt and their suffering. I learn so much in that place of being present and loving. More than when I numb myself because little me cannot change the hard things.
I've questioned many times in the last three years whether or not I should become a nurse. And then there are days like today. When I see sick patients with big smiles and bigger hearts.  It seems automatic to pray for them on my long walk down the hallway to nurses station. To pray for God's will to be done, for peace for them and their families, for healing, for love, and for God's presence. And for me, as much as I would love to say, praying is not my first reaction to hard things. A truth I've learned is that I cannot do life alone, which means I cannot be a nurse alone. I need jesus, and I need to continually, throughout the day faintly whisper "I trust you Jesus."
I know that I was made to be a nurse when I drive home processing the day with a lump in my throat because of the brokenness and hurt in our world, but a deep and fulfilling warmth in my soul because I know that in the darkness there is light, and I feel that light maybe more then I ever have in my life.

THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS, AND THE DARKNESS HAS NOT OVERCOME IT. John 1:5