For the past 2 months I have been adjusting to my new gig as a hospital social worker.  I love the diversity and there is something comforting about hospitals to me. I have the privilege of working on all the different units at the hospital, some of which I enjoy  more than others.  Sure, working with patients and families who are sick and inevitably in crisis is not a walk in the park. But, I love it.  I can handle it.  Well, most of it. Strokes: check, Preemies in the NICU: check, abuse and neglect: check.  Before I bore you,  let me cut to the chase,  EVERYTHING but death and dying: check.  What I recognized early on was that I don’t do death and dying with patients and really their families.  It scares me.  It intimidates me.  What could I possibly have to say to a family facing such great loss?  <Insert anxiety> I have spent most of my days praying and hoping that my patients will stabilize.  To date, all of my patients have left the hospital with a pulse and improved condition.  I repeat, I don’t didn’t do death and dying.

There have been days at work where I have felt burdened by overwhelming feelings of compassion for patients because of their situations or diagnoses, but today was a first for me.  Today was different.  Today I spent my day in the critical care unit (CCU) with very sick patients.  Each morning I get debriefed on patients in the unit that I need to be aware of as well as assigned my caseload.  A particular patient caught my attention this morning, one that was not assigned to me, but stuck with me nonetheless. This patient was a single mother who had suffered a brain aneurysm while out with her teenage daughter.  No prior indicators that anything was wrong. She was now in the CCU, brain dead,  impending death and her family knew it.  Later in the day, while visiting with my patients/families throughout the unit, I couldn’t help but notice all of the commotion surrounding this patients room.  Several family members, young children, teenagers with their backpacks on having come from school, and siblings of the patient walked from her room to the family room with heavy feet, tearful and visibly heartbroken, physically holding one another.  Immediately I knew, the worst for this family had happened. My heart broke and fell to the bottom of my chest.  I stood at the nurses station, fighting back tears.  No, I had never met this patient.  No, I had never met her family but something hit me, and it hit me hard. Like someone had knocked the wind out of me.  God was doing something in my heart and teaching me something at that very moment.  It was no mistake I was on this unit today, standing there at that very moment.

Friends, life is SHORT.  Living until the ripe age of 95 is not guaranteed.  But DEATH surely is. I am heartbroken for her family, for her children who will have to re-learn life without their precious mom.  Loss is hard. I don’t know what their beliefs were, but I pray that if they don’t already know Jesus, that they would come to know him.

Hospitals represent a place of healing for many, but the reality is that only God can truly heal.  Death happens.  This is what makes Easter so incredible.  We cannot even prevent death yet Jesus DIED and ROSE from the dead. WOW. And to think, He did this purely out of His goodness, grace and love for you and for me.

Friends, if you remember, please pray for me.  Pray that I would have courage to face death and dying with these families.  That God would use me to share His truth with them in words and actions.  To break down those barriers that hinder me.  There is no reason to fear death when we have a personal relationship with our Savior who loves us immeasurably more than we can even fathom.

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