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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas in Heaven


 Every year when I read "Two from Galilee" I am taken back to that time 2000 years ago when two very young people were going through a very difficult time; simply because they had been chosen to be the earthly parents of Jesus. I believe they knew they were blessed but it must have been so difficult for them knowing that everyone else did not believe them. 
 For some reason, in the past couple of days I have wondered what Christmas in Heaven is like. Like so many, I have loved ones in heaven. I wonder if they are celebrating the night that Jesus came to earth as a baby. I think they are. They know even better than we do what His birth and death did for us. I like to think of my little forever 5 year old son sitting on his Gramma's lap, perhaps listening to Mary and Joseph tell the story. I am happy for both of them.
For some reason today, i thought of someone else in heaven this Christmas. I met him 3 years ago at hospice and had written this story about him. I know he is celebrating Christmas in heaven tonight and I feel so honored that I was able to make that happen for him. 

An Instrument of Thy PeaceLord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
St. Francis of Assisi - 13th century
Several years ago, when I became a hospice nurse, I decided to make this very beautiful prayer, my personal "work prayer". I thought at the time that it would help me to be the kind of nurse that God wanted me to be. I wanted to be His instrument of peace in an environment where peace was needed so much.
I am not just a hospice nurse; I am a third shift nurse who works in an inpatient hospice facility. Most of our patients come to us because their symptoms are too intense to be managed in the home environment or they have no one to care for them in their homes. Ninety five percent of the patients I care for will die in our care. The other five percent are there for symptom management and are able to go back to their homes to die.
 Some people think there must be something wrong with me, to choose to be a hospice nurse who works at night. They ask me frequently, “isn’t that depressing?” I have found it to be especially rewarding. It is during the darkness of night when family and friends have gone home and left the patient alone to deal with the fact that he or she is dying, that I am needed.
Over the years, I believe that God has helped me to be an instrument of peace to most of my patients. There is one experience though that I will forever consider my most humbling and rewarding experience in my 38 years as a nurse.
For approximately six weeks we had a patient that had been especially fascinating to me.  He was a man in his late seventies with terminal cancer. That is not unusual; many of my patients are about that age and have that diagnosis. What made this man unique to me was that he is that he and his wife of thirty-five years were of different religions.  
This man’s wife had been with him day and night since his arrival because she wanted to be with him at the time of death.
            One night when I had the opportunity to spend some time with my patient's wife, she confirmed what I believed about her. She was a Christian. It fascinated me that a Christian was married to a man of different faith.  She shared with me some of the challenges that they faced because of their different beliefs.
Over the six weeks that I had cared for this man, I had seen him very close to death twice. But for some reason, we would "fight his way back". Each time, he came back more agitated and difficult to treat. He did not seem to be in physical pain, and we wondered if there was some reason why he could not just let go of life. As a hospice nurse, I am aware that many times people hang onto life because there are unresolved issues that they need to deal with before they go. The human spirit is an amazing thing.
His doctor had asked his wife if she felt he had some spiritual or emotional issue that needed to be dealt with. She said that she did not know.
One night when I did my first rounds at , I found this patient to be awake and agitated. He was too agitated to even look at me, but appeared to be looking at something beyond me. I had to get help to give his medicine to him because of his agitated state.  I assured his wife that I would check on him frequently until he went to sleep so that she could get some rest.
About 30 minutes later I noticed that he was becoming quieter but still awake. 15 minutes after that, his call light came on. I assumed that it was his wife calling for me, since most of the time he was too confused to be able to use it.
When I entered the room, I noticed that she was asleep on the cot in the corner, and my patient was lying in bed with the call light in his hand. I went over to him, called him by name and asked him if he needed something. He let go of the call light and grabbed my arm with both of his hands. Then, unlike before, his eyes met mine and in a loud, almost angry voice, he said "Jesus Christ".
At first I thought he was still agitated and was swearing. So I called him by name and asked him again,
"What do you need?" Once again he looked me in the eyes and said "Jesus Christ".
"You want Jesus Christ?" I asked him. He nodded his head yes. "What do you want Jesus Christ for?" I asked him. As clear and as calm as I had ever seen him, he replied "for forgiveness of sins."
            For a moment I stayed silent, assessing him to make sure that he was speaking with a clear mind. Then I asked him, "Do you want Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins?"
He nodded his head yes.
 At our hospice, we have 4 chaplains, but none of them work nights. I knew that by the time I got one of them to come in, this man might be asleep or go back into his agitated state. It was at that moment that I knew that this was my chance to be an instrument of peace.
He still had a grip on my arm, so I took my other hand and covered one of his and again called him by name, " do you know what you need to do to be forgiven of your sins?" Once again, he nodded his head and said "you pray."
"Can you do that? Can you ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins?" Once again he looked at me and said "you pray".
 As simply as I could, I explained to him that he is the one who would have to ask Jesus to forgive him, that I couldn’t do it for him. Then I asked him if he wanted me to say the words and he could just repeat them after me. He nodded his head yes.
As I began to pray, he repeated every word that I spoke. 45 minutes earlier, he had been in such a confused and agitated state that I could not even get him to listen to me, but at that moment, I believe that as we prayed, he knew what he was doing and his prayer was sincere.
In our prayer, we told God that we knew that He was the one and only God adn we were thankful that He had sent His Son, Jesus to die on a cross so we could have forgiveness of sins. We told Him that we knew we were sinners but could be forgiven of our sins if we only asked. And then we thanked him for forgiving our sins and giving us eternal life in heaven.
When he and I finished our very simple prayer, he let go of my arm. I asked him if he thought he could go to sleep now and he nodded his head yes and closed his eyes. I stood and looked at him for a few minutes and marveled once again at the love of God that can reach down, pick a man out of sin, even in the last moments of life and give him eternal life.
My new Christian brother slept all night. At the next morning, I went into his room and asked him if he remembered me and the prayer that we had prayed together last night. He seemed very tired and much weaker but nodded his head yes. I asked him if it was okay if I shared with his wife what we had done, and he again said yes.
As I told his story to his wife, she began to cry. She told me that he had been a very wicked man and that she had to leave him at one point because of his wickedness. She said that she had prayed for him everyday though and had told him many times that she had forgiven him for the harm he had done to her. I told her that I believed that God had answered her prayer.
The next night when I went back into work, he was still there. I was told that the agitation and restless had not been there all day. He had been peaceful all day and that night he slept. Within days he closed his eyes for one last time on this earth and woke in the arms of his heavenly Father.
 And I am grateful for the opportunity that I had to be an instrument of God’s peace.
© 2010 Brenda J. Young

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