Hospital and Hotel are NOT synonymous

I vividly remember one of the first things my clinical instructor said before my first hospital experience sophmore year. It was that we [the nursing students] "needed to realize that when patients are in the hospital they are there to get better, if they wanted to relax and rest they could go to a hotel." That struck me very odd because I thought that the point of hospitalization was to rest so that you could get better but in my inexperience I kept my mouth shut and went on my way. Fast forward to this year. As I sit at the end of my first semester junior year (I can't believe it's almost over!), having completed eleven eight hour and two twelve hour shifts I think I finally understand.

As nurses we make beds, fluff pillows, provide toiletries, and bring snacks and drinks to our "guest's" rooms, much like housekeepers at hotels, to make their stay that much nicer. BUT we are also the ones who enter our "guests" rooms before the crack of dawn to reposition them in their bed, much to their dismay. We rouse them every so often to assess their vital signs, take a glucose reading, or provide them with their scheduled medications. We are also the ones who make them get up out of their comfortable warm bed to sit up in the chair or take a stroll down the ever so beautifully decorate hospital hallway. Through the complaining, grinding of teeth, grimacing looks, and protests we do it because these measures are best for our patients. What they don't realize is that even though getting up and moving is painful and exhausting it will help them get better faster. More times than not our patients can't see the end when they are in midst of battling a disease so it's our job to come along side them. We push them to do things they don't want to do so they can heal. Don't get me wrong, nurses do provide periods of rest throughout the day but those are hardly ever protested :) The revelation that hospitals are not hotels came to me in the strangest yet most practical way...

Every morning on my way to where ever I am heading for that day I pray, it's a time I look forward to most in my day. It's just me and God in my minivan. These last few weeks have kind of been rough for me, I feel lost in life (I'll explain later). A time that is usually filled with words right up until I arrive at my destination has been replaced with silence. I told God that I did not know what to pray anymore and so I was just going to sit in His presence. One day recently as I was sitting at a red light I was thinking about what I had read in "Lady in Waiting" and all of a sudden it hit me. God, the ultimate caretaker, sometimes makes us do things we don't want to do in order to make us "better." Even when we cannot see the big picture He can. He will hold our hands through the tears, He will provide all our needs, and He will walk with us through the tough times to get us to where He wants us to be if we just let Him.

God has pulled me out of "my bed" and is asking me to walk through this part of my life and trust that He has my best interests at heart. I may not like it, and I don't but here I am God.