Growing Pains

Nursing school changed us. Our faith was made malleable, then firm. Our hearts were fired, broken, and reformed in the hands of His grace. We faced our demons, faced spiritual battles, and though bruised we were never crushed. He endures, and so we endured. But in all this it was our lives in his sovereignty. It was Justin's battle, it was my perseverance, it was providence for my children. It was a great war in a very small world. In our great weakness, He proved His strength. But it was only us.

The shifts are twelve hours now. And the man who returns home at the end of half a day is different than the man who awoke at 5:00am. Families with patients in the ICU are having a life defining and faith forming (or destroying) moment. The nurses in the ICU try very hard to be unchanged every moment of every day. It is an impossible task. Some part of your heart wants to be unaffected, some part of your spirit never wants to remain unmoved.

There are things he can't tell me: patient confidentiality. So he sidles around the facts, creeps to the edge of what he is allowed to say; because he has to say something. You cannot hold so many lives alone.

Last week he did CPR on an infant. Nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists screamed at him: too fast, too slow, push harder, don't crack ribs! And with his own lungs he called a baby back to life. It was a hopeless endeavor. His God had already called the little one home. He didn't weep. But something in his eyes was hollow.

The snarling edges of a hurricane blew through our town. The relentless rain became heartless as a truck hydroplaned. Justin ran the halls of the ICU, fetching this, recovering that, calling for help. Trauma is the nice word for don't-look-too-close. He spread lidocaine over a young skull, preparation for a drill. He came home as calm and mellow as ever. He helped put the kids to bed, he had dinner with me. If you didn't look too close, you would never catch the emotional exhaustion leaking out of the cracks in his surface. My godly man, my rock, the fortress for my children and my heart, is now strong for other families, and stands unmovable for strangers.

She has CP. This one was not easy for me to hear. Blood. It is life when it is hidden. It is death when it is seen. And he saw. Too. Much. He told me he had never been so afraid. One patient, twelve hours, a life on egg shells. But he survived, and so did she. For now. We are constantly reminded: there is no promised tomorrow. Every breath is a blessing. And with every breath he is made new.

There are boys with cancer, and girls with diabetes. There is abuse, and accidents, and sicknesses that are no accident, but you wonder 'How could this be Your plan?'

And he has stood.

I have never loved him so completely. But even more I have never respected him so fully. I see the struggle, but just as clearly I see the courage. He is growing, changing, being made new for an end we cannot yet imagine. And I take it all in. I try to stand as strong and as tall. I try to listen every night without tears. I try to have some comfort available.

It is not easy.

But it is worth it.

Because I am seeing my husband with new eyes. And he is incredible.