Seeing Christ

I'm on ER this month. It can be a challenge to see Christ in my patients sometimes. The patients coming in, loudly complaining of back pain that seems to be less real than my back pain at the end of my shift. The patients saying it's a medical emergency that they've had a runny nose for a day or pinky pain for two hours and can't we hurry up and make them all better? The patients who are dirty and smell. The patients who show disrespect and anger to those of us sacrificing so much of ourselves to try to help them. The patients who are rude and impatient. The patients who lie and manipulate.

But, God has called me for this task, and I need to look beyond and see who visits me. It's Christ. I came across this prayer of Mother Teresa's recently, and it was such a good reminder to me of my duty as a Christian medical student, and as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Whether at work or at home, I often fail to see Christ in those around me. And yet, He is always in my midst, giving me opportunities to grow in holiness by loving Him more perfectly in His many disguises. May this prayer become my prayer:

Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you.

Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: "Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you."

Lord, give me this seeing faith, then my work will never be monotonous. I will ever find joy in humouring the fancies and gratifying the wishes of all poor sufferers.

O beloved sick, how doubly dear you are to me, when you personify Christ; and what a privilege is mine to be allowed to tend you.

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.

And O God, while you are Jesus my patient, deign also to be to me a patient Jesus, bearing with my faults, looking only to my intention, which is to love and serve you in the person of each one of your sick.

Lord, increase my faith, bless my efforts and work, now and for evermore, Amen.

- Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

It can be hard to keep this perspective, too, when the people around you don't have this viewpoint. We had a patient in the middle of the night who got drunk and angry, and punched windows and cut his own arms (deeply) with a pocketknife. He was extremely rude, belligerent, ungrateful, and demanding. As I stitched him back up, he kept saying he didn't think we cared about him (because we weren't given him pain medicine in addition to the lidocaine numbing - he'd already had a lot of alcohol and we couldn't give him sedating narcotics on top of it) and I kept reassuring him that we cared. I tried to make some pleasant small talk to make him feel more comfortable. I told him I'd pray for him. I left his room to hear some of the doctors talking about how the patient was right - they didn't care about him.

But, I've also seen beautiful expressions of Christ's love around me, too, when I open my eyes to it. A nurse, no gloves on her hands, stroking the filthy hair of a drug addicted young woman who was in pain, to give her some comfort. A resident speaking words of encouragement and holding the hands of a woman while another resident put in a central line (big IV in the neck). The techs who patiently and cheerfully run off for yet another warm blanket or water for a patient.

It's all about the little things, both at work and at home. As Blessed Teresa put it, so well, "“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

God, give me the grace.