One of the questions I have gotten asked more frequently than any other during my time in nursing school is, "Why nursing?" I remember feeling baffled the first time that I was asked this. I am always tempted to shoot back the cliche answer: "Because I want to help people!!" This is true, but I needed to really step back and understand what "helping people" means to me. I would not be honest if I didn't admit to many moments of doubt during my nursing journey. When it seems like I will never master a particular skill, pass a validation, make it through a particularly challenging clinical, or pass an extremely difficult exam, I am tempted to question my path. Yet I always come to the end of a challenging experience realizing that my nursing path is worth every tear, every discouraging clinical, and every failed exam. My family and friends have cheered me on every moment of the way (and I couldn't do it without them!!) but something deeper has kept me going through it all.
I quickly realized that there really is no one answer to my "why." My passion and love for nursing is multi-faceted. There are so many reasons I have come to love nursing, but I could not really pinpoint one specific motivation for why nursing has captured my heart.
Through my clinical experiences, I have realized that to be a nurse is to help people when they are at their most "human." It makes me so sad when I realize how often people see our humanity as a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with being a person and having human functions! I cannot count the number of times patients apologize for their weaknesses and inability to take care of themselves when it is completely out of their control. When I have had to perform some particularly unpleasant task, I always let myself get over the disagreeable elements of the work by putting myself in the patient's shoes. How horrible would it be to lie in bed, completely helpless with nobody to take care of me! When you fill your thoughts with compassion and empathy, there is no room for disgust or repulsion. Now don't get me wrong: in the very messy situations, I will most certainly be wearing extra layers of gloves and a gown! Still, at the end of the day, if my patient needs me I want to be there for them no matter what.
To be human is to be like Jesus. This sounds strange and contradictory, but it is such a precious truth! Michael Kelly Blanchard captured this so perfectly in the following words...
"Didn't see you there, didn't know you were weeping too. I think of tears as a human wound; Though of course You care, You have shown You were human too. They say you cried at Lazarus' tomb...I was unaware how it is with a broken God. I thought of You as above my pain. Lost in my despair, so it is with a broken heart. I never dreamed You could feel the same."
Jesus did not see Himself as "above" our pain. Instead, He entered into it, experienced it, embraced it, endured it, and ultimately conquered it. He allowed Himself to be broken so that He can now enter into our brokenness. How wonderful it is to have a God Who can relate to our weakness...
As a nurse, I will get to help people at the hardest, most vulnerable times of their life. This is an enormous responsibility, and at times it can be utterly intimidating. I have helped prepare patients who are about to go in for a huge surgery, provided tissues for family members who are preparing themselves to watch their loved one pass away, and squeezed a mom's hand in gentle encouragement as she welcomed her new child into the world. I have gotten to see life begin as a brand new baby fills their lungs for the first time, and I have gotten to see life end as a hospice patient breathed their last and gently passed away. Life to me is so miraculous, and I never get over how incredible it is that each of our body systems work in the way they do. To sustain life is so complex and intricately involved, yet it is something that our bodies do day in and day out with every move we make or breath we take.
Phillips Brooks summarized so perfectly how Christians should live their lives, no matter what vocation they pursue. He said, "Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but YOU shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God."
THIS is my WHY. Not to have an easy life, but a rich one! How incredible is it that we, (by God's grace), can become "miracles" for Him. To enter into a patient's life, to empathize with their pain and to bring them some small measure of comfort. To be there rejoicing when life begins and gently wiping away the tears when it comes to an end. To follow in the footsteps of our Savior, experiencing the richness, sadness, pain and joy that life brings. What an enormous privilege-I couldn't ask for anything more!
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