This I Believe - The One about Faith
During my mental health rotation in nursing school my professor for the class would start by sharing an essay from a book entitled, This I Believe. From it she would read in her sweet drawling Texan accent about the philosophies of different people throughout the ages. Some beginning with "I believe in feminism..." or "I believe in freedom for my people..." Some religious some not but all tied closely to a deep sense of self and the things that drive people. Understanding what you believe can be a mighty weapon. We all hope in things, fear things, and believe in things. This is an essay about my time in mental health nursing and discovering what it is I believe in accordance to my nursing practice.
"What Is It You Believe?"
I believe I have nothing to give. Hear me when I say I do not mean this in a self-deprecating way. I am
a bright, well educated, competitive young woman. Life has taught me compassion and nursing school
has taught me how to care for my fellow human beings. Yet when I walked into the halls of the mental
health psych unit my first day of clinical, I walked in empty handed. I was surrounded by gray walls and
stood face to face with patients whose sickness I could not begin to understand. Whose problems I could
not fix, because I could hardly see them. “What can I give these patients?” I asked the LORD every day
I was buzzed through the double set of doors where I would attempt to break the aquarium effect created
between the staff and patients. And it was here I learned to listen, and in listening, I heard the sorry tales of these
patient’s lives. They told them to me not just through their words but through their sadness, frustrations,
mistrust, and anger. They came here for a little while and sometimes got better but more often than not
they fell back into whatever prison their minds had created for them and ended up back here, in our own
padded wall prison. I could not fix them, I could not restart their brains, and I could not give them the one
thing I have always so desperately desired to give. I could not heal them. Yet slowly as I listened and as
I waited out my time in my psych facility rotation I understood the LORD telling me, “You have
nothing to give. Only I can bring healing.” And it was finally armed with this realization that it was not
my place to heal, that it was not about me after all, that I was able to bring peace into my practice. I
pray for every patient that I have encountered on my clinical journey as a nursing student. Not because
I do not believe in the restorative practice of medicine and pharmacology but because I believe the
healing, which I cannot give, is the salvation and forgiveness of Christ. And it leaves my proud heart
humbled every day.
"What Is It You Believe?"
I believe I have nothing to give. Hear me when I say I do not mean this in a self-deprecating way. I am
a bright, well educated, competitive young woman. Life has taught me compassion and nursing school
has taught me how to care for my fellow human beings. Yet when I walked into the halls of the mental
health psych unit my first day of clinical, I walked in empty handed. I was surrounded by gray walls and
stood face to face with patients whose sickness I could not begin to understand. Whose problems I could
not fix, because I could hardly see them. “What can I give these patients?” I asked the LORD every day
I was buzzed through the double set of doors where I would attempt to break the aquarium effect created
between the staff and patients. And it was here I learned to listen, and in listening, I heard the sorry tales of these
patient’s lives. They told them to me not just through their words but through their sadness, frustrations,
mistrust, and anger. They came here for a little while and sometimes got better but more often than not
they fell back into whatever prison their minds had created for them and ended up back here, in our own
padded wall prison. I could not fix them, I could not restart their brains, and I could not give them the one
thing I have always so desperately desired to give. I could not heal them. Yet slowly as I listened and as
I waited out my time in my psych facility rotation I understood the LORD telling me, “You have
nothing to give. Only I can bring healing.” And it was finally armed with this realization that it was not
my place to heal, that it was not about me after all, that I was able to bring peace into my practice. I
pray for every patient that I have encountered on my clinical journey as a nursing student. Not because
I do not believe in the restorative practice of medicine and pharmacology but because I believe the
healing, which I cannot give, is the salvation and forgiveness of Christ. And it leaves my proud heart
humbled every day.
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