Unfettered Faith

This weekend has been a roller coaster of fear, anxiety, relief, and gratitude that has left me feeling emotionally and mentally depleted. But it was also yet another eye opening revelation to God’s power and timing. 

I work in the emergency room, in the midst of all the chaos that comes with it. The craziness has never bothered me. I have often said that I would be very unlikely to ever be a nurse in any other environment. You see a lot in the ER. Families living in their cars. Alcoholics who are brought in almost daily after being found unconscious. Families requesting hospice care so their loved one can pass in comfort. Families abandoning their loved ones because they are too burnt out to care for them anymore. Life altering diagnoses. Death and loss. Pain and fear. This weekend was the usual mix of patients. With one exception.

A friend had been brought in for having a seizure at home. He was requesting to leave without getting the medical care that he needed. AMA, or against medical advice. I sat and talked with him for a bit and despite my pleas for him to reconsider, he was set on his decision to leave. He signed the forms and I walked him outside to wait with him for his ride. When his friend arrived to pick him up, we said our goodbyes and I went back inside. 

Less than a minute later, we were being called out to the parking lot because he was having another seizure. He was brought back inside and into a room. Once he was in the doctor’s care, my adrenaline faded and the subsequent emotional crash was significant. Watching a friend seize and bleed from how hard he was biting his own tongue, but being able to do nothing more than hold his head off the ground and keep telling him it would be ok… even as a nurse, it was terrifying. When the patient is just a patient, it’s easier to act and stay calm because your emotions are not directly tied to that person. When the person having the medical crisis is someone you care about, eventually that little bit of trauma catches up to you. 

As I calmed down and started mentally processing the events that had occurred, I began to tally up the reasons I was grateful to God. 

• That someone was home with him to call 911. 
• That this happened on a day I was working so he had a familiar face during a scary time.
• That the ER staff was so quick to act to help him.
• That he was able to get the medical care he needed to save him.
• That he seized a second time.

You see, the friend that had come to pick him up was riding a motorcycle. He didn’t have a second helmet with him. Had my friend seized on the back of a motorcycle going down a busy road (in rush hour traffic) with no helmet, he could have and likely would have died. Possibly more than just him. He made his choice to leave, despite being advised by several medical professionals that it was a bad idea. His mind was made up and no one was going to change it. But when his mind couldn’t accept the danger he was placing himself into, God literally stopped him in his tracks. 

The second seizure in the parking lot was God’s divine intervention. He physically would not allow him to get on that motorcycle. While that horrible event will always be burned into my memory, it will always be one I am grateful for. It may have been scary as hell, but it saved my friend’s life. In the moment, that’s not something you can see clearly. I have found that some manner of reflection and perspective are usually necessary to fully grasp God’s blessings. 

When you think back on the things in your life that seem so awful, trace the line of your life from that point on. You will find that there are things in your life that wouldn’t be there without that event. People, opportunities, places, things, feelings. My brother made a series of bad choices several years back. He ended up addicted to drugs and in a matter of months was destroying his health and had lost or pawned off most of his things. He lost his job, his money was gone, and he was alienating himself from his loved ones. It was a horrific time for our family. But through a truly divine series of events, he ended up back in touch with an old girlfriend who lived 400 miles away. She helped him get sober and put his life back on track. They are married and have a son now. He often talks about how he wouldn’t change anything about that part of his life because without it, he wouldn’t have the things he has now. His family, his home, his job, his health, his life. 

So many things in our lives can and do seem like bad things, but are really blessings in disguise. There are definitely times in my life where I know that God had His hand on me and used something terrible to help put me in the right place. There are also some things that I still don’t understand. I just trust that there is a purpose buried somewhere within the turmoil. Getting what you want doesn’t always mean you get what you need. And getting something you think you don’t deserve may be getting exactly what you need.