the medical floor of a US hospital is an interesting place to work. patients have set expectations of what they want and what they deserve. (life, health, happiness, and prosperity). there are too many people who do not care to get better. oh, they want immediate fixes but as long as they don't have to make an effort. there are the ones that do want to get better or want to work to get better. but those are the ones that end up with a diagnosis like leukemia, MS, or colitis...they won't get better but they will try to change and live...
sometimes it's a hopeless place to work...
sometimes it's exasperating...
but you get numb to it all and shake your head at another 50year old with pancreatitis withdrawing from alcohol for the 7th time in 6 months. "this time I will go to rehab." and "this time" he doesn't and he is back again the next month.
then you roll your eyes at the 23 yr old heroin addict who doesn't want to quit; who doesn't understand that a massive clot in his femoral vein is a very serious diagnosis. but he shoots up in the bathroom in his PICC line and waits until he's discharged from this mess so he can start the process again. because he doesn't care if he gets another clot, infection, or disease...there are medications that can cure everything. in fact, he is invincible. (wasn't that the developmental stage he was supposed to go through in early teens? when he learns that he is not in fact invincible.)
and you bite your tongue as you gently speak to the annoyed, morbidly obese lady who believes that the world owes her all comforts. but she does not want to turn on her side in bed... that is too much effort.

...but then there is the 90 yr old man who looks in your eyes and holds your hand while he is dying and a tear falls down his face as you ask him "are you scared?" and you pray for him and tell him about Jesus' peace and you remember why you are a nurse on a medical floor right now.
...and the 92 year old, confused lady who tries to hit you in the face because she's scared. "are you having a hard time breathing?" "yes." "oh, dear, lie back on your pillow and let's fix that." after giving a breathing treatment, smoothing down her hair, tucking her into bed, speaking a few tender words, and turning out the lights she goes from yelling and hitting to fast asleep...like a weaned child.
ah. now I remember why He has me here. to show what it means to be loved by God. what a good God we have. He loves even the most difficult. in fact I think, if Jesus were here he would spend most of His time in the room of the young drug addict, the alcoholic father, the suicidal woman, and the scared and dying grandpa. He loves so much more tenderly and unbiased than I do.
yet, I am called to be the visible image of the love of Jesus.

oh, Jesus, perfect my imperfect love for Your people. that I may love them more as You do.

and i am content...

Today's reading

A visitor at a school for the deaf and dumb was writing questions on the blackboard for the children. By and by he wrote this sentence: "Why has God made me to hear and speak, and made you deaf and dumb?"

The awful sentence fell upon the little ones like a fierce blow in the face. They sat palsied before that dreadful "Why?" And then a little girl arose. Her lip was trembling. Her eyes were swimming with tears. Straight to the board she walked, and, picking up the crayon wrote with firm hand these precious words: " Evenso, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight!" What a reply! It reaches up and lays hold of an eternal truth upon which the maturest believer as well as the youngest child of God may alike securely rest--the truth that God is your Father.

Do you mean that? Do you really and fully believe that? When you do, then your dove of faith will no longer wander in weary unrest, but will settle down forever in its eternal resting place of peace. "Your Father!"

I can still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken and darken the very air of heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight.

-Arthur Christopher Bacon