A BLESSED EXPERIENCE
It was 7:30 on a
Thursday night. The moon was full and all was quiet on my seventh floor,
29-patient psychiatric ward. I was the
Charge Nurse: I had two psychiatric
technicians to assist me. I was charting
at the desk. “Excuse me. I’m looking for Mrs. Anna McPhearson.” I looked up at this gentle-faced, kind woman
of about 40 years. She looked at me in
her colorful winter attire and smiled, told me she was Chaplain Irena and
remarked surprisingly that the unit was extremely quiet, the most serene she
had ever experienced. She went on to say
that she had visited countless hospital wards in the evenings and never had she
felt the calm peacefulness of this unit.
Chaplain Irena obviously sensed a spirit of calm and serenity, a spirit
of prayer and quiet confidence. She
asked how it was that this quietness and stability can be reached. I told her I
was a Christian and I prayed not only for my patients’ well-being but for
guidance in caring for them, for organizational skills to meet their needs
efficiently and effectively, and for the Holy Spirit’s leading in my deed and
my word. She did not know that the unit
was filled with probably the most serious variety of troubled souls that I had
ever cared for simultaneously…all in different stages of their diseases. The
unit was comprised of alcohol and drug abusers, those who had attempted suicide
, the physically compromised and mentally tormented, the psychotic, the wounded
and depressed and suicidal and on...and on.
The night was long and filled with treatments, assessments,
monitoring, medications and walking and running, supervising, documenting, and
keeping a watchful eye on those in my care.
I often felt as though I could almost inhale the sweet peace of God’s
presence while I cared for the sick. I
would come to a point in the evening where I had completed each patient's
'nursing care. At that point, the Lord
was in charge, completely, keeping them safe, watching over them as I charted
and prepared for the oncoming staff for the next shift. Chaplain Irena said that she came to the unit
to visit a patient and that she did. She
will never know, however, that the message she carried to me was one of
excitement and calm all rolled up into one feeling
Chaplain Irena
and I had shared so much of God’s love and His peace and His promise. I’ll always remember this lady, a lady who
passed through my unit to let me know in her own way that my relationship with
the Lord had a distinctive impact not only on her but on my caring for the
sick. It was as though she came to me
personally, as a messenger from God. There was a messenger on that cold
December night, who spoke kind words of affirmation, with a smile and a sense
of understanding, with a calm assurance that she saw something different on my
unit that night. I thank God for the
confirmation statement of my mission, my calling, through the sweet Chaplain
Irena ~ that the peace of God on that unit was visible to someone else, aside
from me and that someone else spoke to me about the palpable presence of that
peace.…And I thank my God and my Savior for this blessed experience of His love
and of His grace.
©
October, 2012
Carol A. Castagna
Library of Congress
Library of Congress
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