Devotionals – Page 4

Nursing carries heavy responsibilities. It requires long days, longer nights, and impossible schedules. In celebration of one of my favorite nurses, I’ve reprinted an except of our story from my book Song in the Night. Her name has been changed, but everything else is as it happened in the summer of 1997.

One nurse in particular that we loved was named Mandy. She was slender and petite, with lovely dark hair and makeup that was always perfect. She had an exotic air and a husband who was a businessman in Africa. She always seemed to know what to do and did it expertly. Kevin said that she did the best job of suctioning the secretions out of his lungs of anyone on the floor, so I watched her carefully and had her teach us her own technique.

One day in particular, things were very trying. Kevin was still stick, and I just had to go run a quick errand. There was no other family member to stay with Kevin while I was gone, and Kevin kept begging me not to leave him. Mandy saw my dilemma and offered to sit with Kevin until I came back.

Thankfully, I took her offer and rushed out. I knew she was busy, and Kevin wasn’t the only patient that needed her. So I hurried as fast I could and breathlessly returned to find her sitting peacefully at his bedside, chatting amiably with Kevin as she gave him a manicure.

A warm rush of gratitude flowed over me. She could not have realized how little of our human dignity was left after these long weeks. The harsh environment of living in the world of the near-dead had ground us far into the dust. Although people around us had been so good to us, and most of the medical people tried, the very nature of the situation was immensely dehumanizing. We existed on little food, sleep, or comfort. Rehab schedules did not allow time for living. Whoever was staying with Kevin slept on a big chair that folded out into a small bed that was in his room. We often slept and lived in the same clothes. Our world revolved around learning a myriad of medical procedures, basic caregiving, and getting Kevin through another day.

There wasn’t time to truly grieve, to hurt, to process what was happening, or even to feel. We were often treated like machines, pushed and prodded and educated in things we neither envisioned nor wanted to learn. There were days Aaron and I didn’t know who was taking care of our youngest daughter or even where she was. That haunted me, and it caused recurring nightmares in which I had lost her. For a while, she bounced between friends and family. At fifteen, Daniel was learning physical therapy techniques and sitting long hours with his brother. Erik worked full-time down in Lewiston and drove the 100 miles up to Spokane, every weekend, to help.

I understand that by necessity, the medical world is run by schedules and operates under financial limitations. Faced with the politics of medicine, it’s easy to reduce a patient to “the C2” in room 210 or “the gallbladder” on the fourth floor.

But Mandy had remembered otherwise. She remembered that we were people…hurting, frightened, and overwhelmed. And she cared enough to stop and help us that one afternoon in the way we really needed help.

– Pamela Thorson

Song in the Night
copyright 2008
Published by Luminary Media Group

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Devotionals

April 3, 2010

Spring Always Comes

Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves
so that we would not trust in ourselves,
but in God who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:9 NASB

At the dawn of Easter morning each year, I love to open the Bible to the Gospels and re-visit the tomb of Jesus. Every year, I find find it still empty, and Christ’s victory over death thrills me anew.

The celebration of the resurrection of Christ always comes with the first stirrings of nature out of the deadness of winter. This time of year, it is easier to believe that God can make the dead come alive, for the good news of the resurrection is preached with every living thing that bursts triumphantly from the dark winter earth.

I’ve never liked winter. Every year, it overtakes us, killing everything in its path and heartlessly freezing the life out of all it touches. In the dead of winter, we are surrounded by death. I walk through my garden in the winter, and it seems as though nothing will ever grow there again.

But I’m not worried, because I know its emptiness is temporary. Spring will come. It always does. We all know that.

It’s harder to have that same trust through the winter seasons of our lives. When we bury a parent, a child, a spouse, or a dream, we only see the finality of it all. As we face our own mortality, death seems like the ultimate reality.

But one moment in history changed all that forever. It all changed with one empty tomb.

Yes, we still live in the winter season of time. Death still reigns over the physical realm of this planet. But its days are now numbered. It’s just a season.

And God is Lord of the seasons. He is Lord of the past, the present, and the future. Because He knows the future, He is not worried. He’s been through this winter. The Master walks through His garden and knows that this is all temporary. He knows that because He’s been there. He entered the grave and came back with the keys to death and life.

He’s the One who emptied the tomb, and He’s the One who commands the spring that always comes. In the darkness of our winter night, we can rejoice in this:

Spring always comes.

This is our hope. And hope is a powerful thing.

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Devotionals

May 4, 2009

Is God Tired of Us?

My son Kevin recently watched an award-winning 2006 documentary called God Grew Tired of Us. At his recommendation, I watched it last night. Kevin told me to be prepared to cry.

I was prepared to cry. But I wasn’t prepared to grieve.

The camera follows the story of three young Sudanese men who emigrate to America from the refugee camp in which they have lived since their flight from Sudan years before. The film backtracks to document the violent events which killed and scattered their families and left them to survive alone. As youngsters, John, Daniel, and Panther joined the thousands of “Lost Boys” who made the long trek across treacherous terrain without food or water in search of safety in another country.

They were among the fortunate ones who survived the journey. After years in a refuge camp, they were eventually chosen to emigrate to America. Through the lens, we watch them live the joy of hope, the bewilderment of being thrust into a new culture, and the determination to build new lives in this country. I laughed as they struggled to learn how to turn on a light and tasted their first potato chips. I flinched when they wondered what Santa and a tree of lights had to do with the birth of Jesus Christ.

I cried as they walked in amazement through grocery stores bulging with food, their new American clothes hanging from their gaunt frames as a pudgy American stared at them with frank distaste. I was amazed at their love for one another, their commitment to care for those they left behind, their simple appreciation for all that we take for granted.

It was painful to hear John, in his measured and thoughtful manner, express the belief that God had grown tired of his country and had allowed chaos and death to consume his beloved Sudan. His humility was touching. I grieve for the arrogance with which we have left behind such simplicity of heart.

And it made me wonder: Is God growing tired of us? Will He weary of bestowing abundance on an ungrateful, unbelieving nation? The group that made the trek across Sudan are called “The Lost Boys.”

But I wonder who is really lost.

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Caregiving Devotionals

February 17, 2009

An Every Day Thanksgiving

My husband and I were talking about the world situation the other day. From recent news reports, everything appears to be going to “hell in a hand basket,” as my blessed mother would have said. I’m not sure what the phrase means, but when she used it about any particular situation, we always knew that life wasn’t going to be pretty until some serious adjustments were made.

As my husband and I talked, it occurred to us that, although things around us are bad, we really only know it’s that bad because of the news. We actually wouldn’t even know about it by looking at our lives. Sure, we have a tough situation caring for a quadriplegic son, but our lives are, in many ways (can I really be saying this?) – pleasant. We have much for which to be thankful.

This morning, I was thinking about some of our blessings in these troubled times:

I awakened in my own bed this morning. Believe me, this is a blessing. I, as well as the rest of the family, have spent many nights wadded up in a hospital chair next to Kevin’s bed in ICU or rehab.
God has granted us another day together. My friend Cindy, who recently lost her battle with cancer, would have been ecstatic to have had a healthy, pain-free day to enjoy with her family.
I am in reasonably good health.
I have a wonderful family who loves me and who is trying to serve God every day.
We still live in a free country.
I love my jobs: taking care of those I love and writing about the One I love.
I can eat whenever I want, shower in hot water, use all the electricity I need, sleep when I feel like it, and buy the necessary things and a few extra delights like candy, pretty clothes, and home furnishings.
My friends are awesome.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Yes, I could make a list of the things that make my life difficult, even pitiful by some people’s standards.

But Thanksgiving is such a great place to live. It really beats the alternative. Since I’ve found myself here this morning, I think I’ll just hang around awhile and enjoy the view. God seems to show up here a lot, and I’ve been looking for Him lately, anyway.

I wonder if He was waiting for me.

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Devotionals

February 11, 2009

Never Give Up

I awakened this morning to snow…again. This is one of the longest winters I can remember, and as I face the prospect of another gray day, spring seems to be a distant hope.

The morning drudgery is brightened by a steaming cup of coffee and my quiet time. I’m reading about Joseph in Egypt. As a youth, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and unjustly accused of a crime against his master. It appeared that he would be in prison indefinitely, the dreams of his youth dead.

But in a day, his life reversed as God put into motion the events that would free him and bring him into the place for which God had prepared him. Those years in prison taught him humility and the grace of his Lord. Without the gray days, he would have never been ready for the job God had for him.

As I sit by my computer this morning, two dozen robins have flown in from their winter retreat to set up housekeeping. They hop along the ground like popcorn, seemingly oblivious to the cold. It doesn’t look like spring yet, but they know better. It is coming. It’s the great law of nature: Spring always comes.

Recently, the local paper did an article on Song in the Night and the story of our family. When the reporter asked our quadriplegic son Kevin if he wanted to tell something to the readers, he told her, “Never give up.” We can’t give up, because God can reverse any situation whenever He chooses. We never know how close we are to deliverance and victory. Winter never lasts forever.

Spring comes, and with it, new hope.

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Tag: Devotionals

The Nurse Who Remembered

Spring Always Comes

Is God Tired of Us?

An Every Day Thanksgiving

Never Give Up