God Moves in Mysterious Ways

God Moves in Mysterious Ways

“God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.”

This is just three verses of this beautiful profound hymn that God placed on my heart this week. 

I am a cardiology nurse on a floor where we monitor our patients’ hearts with a wireless telemetry “box” attached to 5 leads on their chest.  We are a cardiac floor, but occasionally cancer patients are admitted to my floor.

I almost always am assigned the cancer patients by chance……   God moves in a mysterious way.  

By God's grace, a beautiful woman was admitted to my floor who had breast cancer 19 years ago and just during the past year, the cancer metastasized to her liver, lungs and brain.  Her comment to me, over and over, as I admitted her last Monday night was, “I can’t do this anymore”.  She was weak, in pain, couldn’t breathe without supplemental oxygen and had a horrible headache that would not go away… most likely from the lesions in her brain.

As I admitted her to the floor, I did everything that I could to make her comfortable.  Earlier this fall, she had agreed to a clinical trial of a new drug for breast cancer metastases, which she believed made her worse.  She was done.   I told her that I had been through treatment for cancer and that I knew a little about the way she was feeling

I got her heated blankets, because when you are on chemo, you are freezing all the time.  I got her extra pillows for her arms, back and bottom, because when you have lost so much weight during chemo, there is no fat on your butt or bones for padding and it literally hurts to sit in a chair or bed or a bathtub.   I got her crackers and mashed potatoes, because those were the only things that she could stand to eat. 

I did everything that I could possibly think of to make her comfortable, and I called the doctor and got her the strongest pain meds possible for her excruciating headache.   She confided to me that she has an adult handicapped daughter at home.  I cannot begin to explain why God would allow this woman to have cancer.

But I can, just for one shift, empathize with her, listen to her, and try to do the simplest of things to make her more comfortable.

Thank you, dear Lord for placing me in the most humbling, gratifying position of being a nurse to the sick, the poor, the elderly and the homeless.   I am truly blessed beyond all possible measure.   And every day, I am grateful.

 

William Cowper was a British poet and hymnist. He struggled throughout his life with depression, doubts, and fears.