Not alone on this journey

How do we help those who help us?
Forgive us, Lord, for taking them for granted, for giving them titles like “service personnel,” for putting ever-greater demands on them, for failing to see and thank the real persons who walk namelessly behind the classification of helping professions. There they are, often so taken-for-granted: waitresses, nurses, surgical attendants, policemen, EMT personnel, members of the military, those who work at night while humanity sleeps.

Thank you, Lord, for those so devoted to serve and help

How can we address all the variety of service Christians in helping professions provide? They can recognize and make uncomfortable experiences positive. They can put the anxious at ease. They can make a dull or boring procedure at least interesting. They can put a crowning touch or an added positive word on an event or experience that is already joyful. They can rejoice with those who rejoice or weep with those who weep. They can live in the grace of Jesus by practicing the Beatitudes (Matthew 5) in their service. They can show that they care. They can love their neighbor as themselves. They can be ready to share the joy and hope that they have in Jesus our Savior. They can turn the mood of a gray day into one that displays God’s sunshine. They can be like Christ to people because through faith he dwells in them.

Nurses come to mind. As a visiting pastor I often observed them, on their feet all day or all night, moving from room to room, patient to patient, listening when no one else would, doing their best to respect visitors and demanding relatives, seeing that needed medications were taken and IVs were flowing, trying to explain any and all situations to doctors as they made their rounds. More recently, as a patient I experienced their attending care and attention to detail. I asked questions, listened, encouraged, and, more than once in the difficult hours of pre-surgery or post-surgery’s sleepless nights, heard nurses whisper that they would pray for me.

Lord, help us understand the lives of those who serve
Author: Wayne I. Schulz
Volume 95, Number 2
Issue: February 2008
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Copyrighted by WELS Forward in Christ © 2009
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