I was standing at the hospital bedside scanning some medicines for my elderly patient. Her daughter sat there as well, much as she had the day before, because Mom was experiencing the typical confusion present in the hospital among the older population. She was finally coming back around to her usual self, and I was enjoying watching her personality emerge. She reminded me of my Nanny, who had passed away years ago, so I was happy for this particular assignment. Despite her recent confusion, anxiety, and restlessness, we had gotten along swimmingly somehow. As her daughter had called me a “Godsend,” I had told her matter-a-fact, “we just get along like peas and carrots.”
“Did you say you’re a missionary?” My elderly patient suddenly asked.
I chuckled to myself. I had said no such thing. I mean, it wasn’t unheard of, as I had been a missionary twenty years ago. Despite the passage of time I still remembered it like yesterday. I could recall all the miraculous things I witnessed, the people I encountered, the souls brought to know Jesus, and especially the ones who didn’t. I could also remember when my time on this particular journey came to a close. Over half of the people I had met and worked with in this organization were continuing in the traditional mission field. Some more going to Africa, a place I’d always wanted to go. They felt the call to a life of mission work, but the call I was feeling wasn’t the same.
As much as my young, twenty-one year old mind wanted to serve on the foreign mission field, my heart wasn’t in it. I felt the Lord urging me to return to the United States, to finish my nursing degree, and to serve Him there.
Years went by, lots of ups and downs, periods of being a prodigal daughter, and periods of returning to Him. All of this flashed through my mind as I stood there at the hospital bedside, and I considered my life now as a Travel Nurse.
I answered back to her, “I guess you could say I’m an Atypical Missionary.”
I then explained how when I sought a new assignment across the country to work as a nurse that God would open doors and close doors. I trusted His hand, and I went wherever He said to go. It wasn’t like He boomed in a deep voice from the clouds, “I need you in South Carolina, Brie,” but rather that I prayed for Him to get me where He needed me most, then I trusted where the chips fell when it came time to choose an assignment. If San Antonio, Texas didn’t call for an interview, I didn’t take it personal. I took it as a closed door.
When it came time to go on the job, each and every day, I prayed. I said, “Lord, go before me and make the way. Give me good patients and a good day.”
When I prayed “good patients, good day” I didn’t just mean an easy assignment where nothing crazy happened. I also meant good, as in His will. I trusted I would receive the patient assignment I was meant to have. Sometimes that meant the angry, noncompliant and chronically ill twenty year old man. Maybe it meant the dying mother, or perhaps other times it was the mentally altered elderly lady. I followed His lead, and I served each patient like I was serving Jesus.
Well, that’s probably more how I try to be. I know for sure that I get flustered, frustrated, and tired. I get angry and fed-up. But my goal is to treat each patient like the Lord would want, so when I see myself getting frazzled I try and remind myself that I am where I am for a reason, and with purpose.
I’m an Atypical Missionary.
And I reckon as Christians we all are.
