A friend posted a mini-rant on Facebook the other day. It was about prayer being a lazy way to deal with things. He was frustrated, ticked-off, pissed-off and otherwise fed up. He didn't mean that everyone who prays does nothing. But, he did mean that a lot of people say, "I'll pray for _____" so that they don't have to do anything, but still get to feel good. And, he's right. It's sad, but he's right. And, in a lot of situations, prayer without action is not what's needed. It needs the hands and hearts to go with it. Working hands and hearts of compassion. Because, most of the time, words without action don't to much.
Now, I'm not saying prayer doesn't work. Quite the opposite. I'm a big ol' believer in prayer. I still really believe in the power of prayer. It helped me get through Dad's death. I truly believe that prayer helped heal my Mom, when the neurosurgeon said she didn't have a single chance to survive her aneurysm (in 1997! And she's still here, kids).
Personally, I'm very bad at praying out loud. My prayers are not eloquent. They're not full of thees, thous and such. They're full of a lot of "um..." and "well, you know what I'm saying." They soothe me, they make me feel closer to God. They make me focus, and often figure out the problem about which I'm praying.
I've seen so many nasty comments on the internet when someone says, "I'll pray for them." They get told that they're talking to an imaginary friend, or worse. But, I'll continue to pray, no matter what others think or say.
The worst kind of prayers that I utter... they're also in my head. They're while my heart is pumping, and my hands are working as hard as they can. They're while I'm being a nurse. They're the worst, because they're being prayed (in my head, as always) in a time when, to put it far less than nicely, the shit has hit the fan.
When someone is dying, or already dead. When I'm silently praying for the patient, their family, and even my coworkers, in between screaming out the chest compression count, yelling for someone to start a line, bring supplies, call someone else in, etc. The family, the patient and my coworkers can only hear the confidence in my voice. The tone that I call my "nurse voice." As I'm telling everyone what to do (loudly, did I mention loudly?), they don't hear the part of me that is terrified.
The part that has already acknowledged the battle is lost, and that my chest compressions have no hope of bringing that patient back. The even worse knowledge that I won, their heart beat has already come back, but I know it won't last, the person is too sick or damaged. They don't hear that inner voice praying so hard that it drowns out my confident voice (in my head at least). That voice is screaming to God that the family have peace. That the patient be out of it enough that they don't feel my huge hands breaking their ribs as I try to bring them back, that they had peace with their family and that they're going on somewhere nice as I feel their skin growing cold.
That voice is begging that my coworkers keep their chins up, no matter how many patients we've lost that week/month/year. That if the family decides to take out their broken hearts on us, accusing us of not caring, or worse of being incompetent or negligent, that my coworkers, and myself, can hold in our hearts the truth that we DID care, and that we DID do our best.
Now that I'm in corrections, I'm praying that the media won't eat us alive for every perceived failing we have. Praying that today won't be the day that the patient we did everything for, and who wound up in a hospital with a terminal diagnosis (that they brought on themselves with terrible life choices), will have a multi-million dollar lawsuit brought against me for not being God. For not being able to heal them from things that I didn't do, and can't fix. I'm praying that all of us will go home safe. That today won't be the day one of us gets attacked. That I won't be working on one of my own at some point that day.
All the while, my hands and heart... they're working. But, so is my soul, so is my mind. And, so is my God. When my prayers don't get answered, and that patient dies. When that article comes out in the paper or a comment pops up on a local website, accusing me and mine of horrible things that are so untrue you can't believe anyone would suggest it of anyone, let alone a nurse who provided great care. When the family lashes out. When you lose patient after patient. When it isn't a patient you lose, but a coworker, a family member. When the fight seems lost, and my prayers seem unanswered, my God is there. Holding my hand, soothing my heart and my mind.
And, I get up. I dust myself off, and I get back to work. I get back to barking orders, being bossy and even laughing too loud in inappropriate circumstances. But, you can bet... sometimes I'm praying, too. And, sometimes... it's for you!
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