Nursing spiritually

I’ve been trying to catch up on all my blog-reading lately, and so naturally, this headliner on our front page caught my eye.  At first I thought, “well, yeah, of course,” and sort of dismissed it, but then I thought I’d take a stop and really read it, see what’s up, and read what other people are saying.

You’ve all really only confirmed what I already knew in my heart. So thank you. As someone raised strong in faith and prayer, I think of myself as a religious person. I feel like nursing came to me as a calling… it was so far from what I had always done, but it just seemed to right, despite the major 180 flip I was turning. I pray regularly, but always a special prayer before work in the morning, and that’s on top of the prayer I know my mom says for me when I leave in the morning.

In our profession we see so much. We see the good and the bad, life and death. We work hand in hand with patients, families, co-workers, all from different backgrounds and beliefs. Regardless of what we believe, we have to be respectful, but we also have to be strong. Strong in faith or spirituality, I think that believing in a higher being, however you prefer it, makes what we do tolerable. I can’t imagine facing the family of a child who has just passed and not believing that he or she was now in a better place. I don’t impose my beliefs on others, but it’s my comfort, my strength, everyday, and even more so because I am a nurse.