The art of nursing

I am currently on track to venture out to the world of Africa--point of destination: Tanzania. This upcoming summer I will be traveling with 6 dear fellow nursing students to a new culture, a new life, and a new mission field. We will carry with us our knowledge from the last few years of college as well as an open heart for those who are vulnerable, as well as medically unstable. We plan to use the gift of compassion, as well as the gift of nursing to reach out to those in times of need. I know that God has great adventures in store for us, and I am letting him use me as a vessel. I want to let God work through my outreach in order to leave an imprint on the lives of those that I am blessed to come in contact. Ghandi once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." I want to let God paint a colorful story with my hands and be the change that I wish to see.

Covenant and Spiritual Ministry

Nursing is a privilege. God has given each and every individual a different gift. For nurses, we have received the gift of compassion. We have been called to take on the spiritual ministry of serving others who are in need of assistance to maintain the components that enable life. In the book A Sacred Covenant: The Spiritual Ministry of Nursing, Mary Elizabeth O’Brien states,

How blessed we are in our vocation of caring to realize that we can be used by Jesus as messengers of His love. It is our eyes that the Lord can use to look with compassion on the world. It is our feet that He can use to carry His healing grace to the ill and the infirm. It is our hands that He can use to touch with His tenderness those who are suffering and in pain. The choice and the commitment, made by nurses, to be used by Jesus as His ministers to the sick may be envisioned as a “sacred covenant,” as a lived experience of the spiritual ministry of nursing. (p. 2)

This statement represents how our every action as a nurse is performed by choice and commitment to fulfill a so-called “sacred covenant.” Let’s break this word down in order to better understand what O’Brien is saying. Covenant is defined as “an important and recurring them in scripture, that describes God’s relationship with such Old Testament figures as Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David; the relationship grows progressively richer in promise until the coming of Christ ushers in the ‘new covenant’ “ (O’Brien, 3). Something referred to as sacred according to dictionary.com is defined as, “entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divined things, holy.” Therefore, in my opinion, a “sacred covenant” is a relationship that I, personally, can have with my Lord that we both strive to be relational with others, having Christ as the foundation.

The spiritual ministry of nursing and care giving is a blessing that requires training. “Miss Nightingale wrote in a note to her first student-nurse probationers, “… Christ is the author of our profession” (O’Brien, 4). We have a role model: Jesus Christ. Through his word, he left an example of how we are to be ministers throughout our service. Christ used every opportunity he was given to exalt His Father in Heaven. Sometimes, he even used healing as a means of ministry: leper and the woman with the bleeding disorder. As nurses, we can use the example set before us to be spiritual ministers of nursing and care giving.

Our spiritual ministry is not always a road that leads to happy endings. “Sometimes nurses are not successful, as hard as we may try, to help a patient cope with a stressful life situation” (O’Brien, 8). We are called by the Lord to minister His Love in our everyday actions, which is one of the many standards for our vocation. To love does not mean we will be successful with every intervention. Loving is something that a nurse can do to those who will get better, and to those who will not. We need to understand that every individual will not respond to our highest aspirations. This can be disheartening, and discouraging for an individual. We must expect “at times to feel overwhelmed with the immensity of the ministry of care giving to which we are called” (O’Brien, 17). We can get confidence from Christ to guide our actions, and give us strength to face the ever-arising challenges in the field of nursing.

Following the Footsteps of Christ

Colossians 3:12 states, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” Nurses have the opportunity to clothe ourselves with these attributes, and serve others with these qualities. Luke 9:1-2 states, “Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority…to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.” We as nurses are sent out into the world—into hospitals, clinics, and various communities—to promote healing with the attitude of Christ. 1 Peter 4:10 states, “Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” Nurses have a gift, and feel called to serve others with the gift of compassion.

Florence Nightingale’s Perspective on Spiritual Serving and Nursing

There are many influential people throughout history that have impacted the art of nursing, and one of those being Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale was known as a woman of prayer. In an 1846 letter written to a family member, Florence divulged a moving daily reflection: “I never pray for anything temporal…but when each morning comes, I kneel down before the rising sun and only say: ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord, give me this day my work to do, no, not my work but Thine.’ “ (p. 20)

Florence Nightingale believed that her work was not her own, but of the Lord. She was a vessel that her Heavenly Father used to reach out to others on this earthly habitation. She also is well known for saying, “Nursing is an art, and if it is to be made an art, it requires as exclusive a devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter’s or sculptor’s work” (O’Brien, 31). She believed that nursing was not just a science, but an art as well and went on to say, “For what is having to do with dead canvas or cold marble compared with having to do with the living body, the temple of God’s spirit” (O’Brien, 31). Florence Nightingale lived a life of service that she dedicated to the Lord. She gave all the credit to Him.

Compassion and Caring

Many times the care we give as nurses is not always acknowledged and “often a nurse’s caring is a hidden ministry known only to the nurse and his or her patient” (O’Brien, 44). Our patient’s look to us not only for their physiological well being, but also on a level of psychosocial regarding emotional and spiritual aspects of life. Mary Elizabeth O’Brien observed ICU staff and stated, “My greatest inspiration was the fact that they never seemed to lose sight of the “patient” amid the myriad tubes and wires and lines sustaining life in this highly technological ICU environment” (O’Brien, 49). Throughout her observation she saw client’s who were unconscious be treated as if they were alert and oriented x3. Patient care is something a nurse must never disregard, no matter what the circumstances. Every patient, unconscious or not, requires the optimum nursing care, and deserves the right to treated as if they understand the words spoken by their caregivers. Mary urges us the need to be cautious about our past experiences and realize that “no two patients, no two care situations are exactly the same” (O’Brien, 50). Our care as nurses needs to be individualized and unique regarding each person, and each circumstance. In order to care for our client’s to the best of our ability, and with the compassion shown to us by example from our Lord, we must have our hearts in the right place. “A first step in living out our nursing call of devotion to caring for the sick is to put ourselves in a place of right relationship with Lord, a place of humility” (O’Brien, 57). We cannot expect to care for others when we have not taken the time to care for ourselves outside of the work facility hours. We must prepare for this career. Also, our focus at work cannot be on ourselves. “For nurses compassion must be the catalyst for and the spiritual undergirding of our caring for the ill and the infirm” (O’Brien, 42). Compassion must be the root of our actions. A client will be able to perceive if our actions were out of love, or out of duty. Even a gentle smile, the lightest touch, or the simplest prayer can bring joy and light to the most devastating of circumstances for patients, families, and friends.

The Art of Nursing

“The purpose of one’s identifying as “God’s flute” is so that he or she may be used as an instrument by which the Lord can make music for the “song starved world” (O’Brien, 9). I am a flute that the Lord has hand crafted to perfection, in order to make a unique tone, to play music in the way he designed me to reverberate. His hands molded me into every curve and bump with purpose. Nursing is an art because no two people are the same, no two people can reach out to an individual the same, and no two people will have the same encounter with a patient. God made us to have a purpose, and gave me the ability to see nursing as an art of caring for those with perfectly molded hands. I can paint a new story with every hand I hold, every medication I give, and every prayer I lift up for a patient. “It’s a very simple unvarnished reed pipe (flute), battered and worn from use, but I like that about it; even its bruises seem very appropriate to remind me that being God’s flute may bring about significant wear and tear, including some distinctive scars” (O’Brien, 10).

Personal Perspective

Vulnerability is letting go of what others may think about me, and letting God take control of my life. To be vulnerable for a patient requires commitment to a life of sorrow, pain, suffering, and sometimes recovery. “Our vulnerability allows hurting patients to share some of their burden with someone who cares so they will not feel so isolated and alone in their illness and infirmity” (O’Brien, 68). To be vulnerable is to put others needs above my own.

A nurse allows herself or himself to be vulnerable to situations with an open-mind. “It is a vulnerability that allows us the precious opportunity to cross over and to stand with those who are in suffering and to try to understand” (O’Brien, 68). A nurse can reveal her vulnerability by sharing intimate moments with a client, and letting the client know that someone cares and is listening.

A patient can be vulnerable by letting the nurse into their lives. John 12:24 states, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies it bears much fruit.” Our patients may not appear to open up to us, but by our actions as nurses, we can plant a seed that a patient may one day spread to another.

As a caregiver, we must understand that our actions are futile without the guidance of the Lord. “We must recognize that we may not always see the fruit of our caring and our ministry” (O’Brien, 75). To be vulnerable is to accept what is to come despite the circumstances, even if it wounds us in the process.