Catching and Carrying

"Here comes another patient, and she thinks she is in labor," I was told. We get a lot of patients in the middle of the night who think they are in labor, and many of them go home with instructions on the difference between true and false labor. But every once in a while we get a patient who really is in labor, and let me tell you, we nurses have learned to recognize it the moment they come through the door.

Wheelchair rolls up. Patient is panting. She cannot speak, but only focuses on her breathing. Contractions are two minutes apart. By the look on her face, I know. She is in labor, and it's already well on its way. It's go time. 

"You are seven centimeters," I tell her calmly, trying to reassure her and myself at the same time. Though cool and collected on the outside, my mind is running one hundred miles an hour because the truth is that I know we don't have much time. 

Usually it takes me about an hour to fully admit and assess a patient. But I put my nursing prioritization skills to work, and our team of nurses came together to help get her ready to have a baby. 

As I called the doctor, one of my teammates went in my patient's room to start her IV. Through the cracked door, I heard her yell my name with urgency in her voice. "Get gloves!" She exclaimed as I ran in the room. In that moment, I knew the doctor was still thirty minutes away, and I was going to have to catch this baby! 

With my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing, I performed my first delivery on night shift without the doctor present. My mind flashed back to the Tanzanian hospital in Africa, where I caught my first baby, where I labored women on a metal bed in a dirty maternity ward, where I was awoken in the middle of the night by a night guard knocking on the window, summoning us to a delivery. 

And I fell in love with labor and delivery all over again. 

"It's a boy!" I announced as I wrapped him up and put him on his mother's chest. Only seventeen minutes ago, she was rolling up in a wheelchair asking for an epidural. Now, she held a brand new life in her arms. How amazing to think that I was the first one to catch his head, rub his back, and bundle him in blankets. I was there for his first breath and first cry. I was there to welcome him into the world. 

After my nerves calmed and all the charting was done, I basked in the joy of the delivery. I then remembered a conversation I had earlier in the week with a new friend. She reminded me that everywhere we go, we carry the presence of God into that place. "I think of myself as a carrier of the presence of God," she said. I like that. 

That is a part of our identity that never changes. We have many separate roles in our lives. For examples: I am sometimes a nurse, sometimes a student, sometimes a daughter, a sister, a friend. But in all these roles, one thing permeates them all. I am always a carrier of the presence of God, and I carry that role into all my other roles. 

"You are the light of the world," Jesus said because we live in a world filled with darkness. I heard someone say that if we could visually see the spiritual warfare going on around us, we would be ducking from swinging swords every minute of the day. I also think if we could visually see spiritual things, we would see little clouds of either darkness or light around each person that we interact with each day. We have to remember that just as the darkness around us is real and can even be felt at times, so the light within us is real as well. We literally carry a cloud of light into places of darkness. And darkness never overcomes light; light always overcomes darkness.

That same friend texted me before I went into work this week. She encouraged me to carry the presence of God into my work place, so that babies would be born surrounded by the light that comes with my carrying the Spirit of God into the room. 

With all these thoughts running through my mind, I realized what a privilege it is for me to work in labor and delivery. Because I am a nurse, I am an advocate, I am a labor coach, I am a servant...and in all that, I am a carrier of the presence of God. Even when I get the chance to bring babies into the world. 

I pray that I live my life in such a way that my patients, their families, and their newborn babies feel the presence of God when I care for them. If they know God, they might recognize His presence, and many actually have. If they do not know God, they may just sense the presence of the light - kindness, gentleness, compassion, and love for them in one of the most precious times in their lives. And if God is gracious enough to open a door for witnessing, then I am happy to tell them the name of the light around me. It is Jesus. 

So whatever roles you possess - whether you are a teacher, accountant, professor, coach, parent, counselor, mother, librarian, paperboy, or babysitter, you have one role that surpasses all others. You have one role that carries over into everything else that you do. You are a carrier of the presence of God. You carry a cloud of light into places of darkness. 

As you go out today, let it shine. For just as Jesus is the light of the world, so He has commissioned us to be the light of the world. This is only possible because the name of the light of the world inside of us is Jesus. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." 

You carry a cloud of light, the Holy Spirit inside your heart, who is the very presence of God.