What does that mean?  To partake of heartache...to share someone's grief.  To take on their load of suffering and anguish and ease their steps for the time in their life that you're a part of it.  To weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn.  To love your neighbor as yourself and feel their pain as your own.  

Christ wept with and for his friends.

I look at the sorrow and suffering around me and fear creeps into my soul.  If I allow them into my heart and their sorrow becomes mine, won't it overwhelm me?  I have my own suffering to bear, after all.  If anymore is added to the load, it seems like it will become more than I can bear.

 

But I can't harden my heart.

I can't, not just because it isn't Christ-like, but because if I do, I will miss out on the blessing that comes from sharing not just another's sorrows, but their joys as well.

Someone told me recently, after seeing me tear up when telling a patient who had stayed with us for an extended period farewell, that I'm going to have to learn to distance myself from my patients if I want to be able to last here.  And I have somewhat.  In cases where I know a person is dying, and I can in no way aid the situation by being there, I do distance myself.  But if I see someone who needs a nurse, or simply a shoulder to lean on or hand to hold, I cannot stand back and ignore it.  

I was called to this place at this time by a God who's grace is sufficient. 

If I can't trust the One who called me here to supply what I need to do what He's called me to do - I might as well go home.  Call it quits, turn in my nursing license, tuck my tail between my legs, and run for Tennessee. 

I love my job here. 

Yes, there are days where I hide in the storage room at the clinic because I don't want all my patients to see me crying.  There are days when it feels like not a single one of the patients in the blood pressure program are doing what they are supposed to or are coming for their appointments when they are told to.  There are days when there is nothing I would rather do than to curl up on my bed and ignore the knocking on the gate at some ungodly hour.  

But then there are the good moments.  The really good, joy-filled moments that remind me why I'm here.  The friendships that I'm slowly but surely forming.  The opportunity to pray for a badly injured man we were transporting out to a larger hospital (that was a day really deserving of its own post - if I'd ever get around to writing it).  Eating the meal that a friend of mine had invited me to her house to cook with her, when she took pity on my decided lack of knowledge regarding Haitian cooking.  Watching one of my Haitian "brothers" that I wasn't sure would ever be able to walk again take his first steps.  Times of sharing our hearts amongst us staff.  Seeing the neat scar that is all that remains of an once ugly wound.  Being able to tell a person who's blood pressure was once totally uncontrolled that they no longer need to come for their "rendezvous tanson", since their blood pressure is now staying within normal limits without medication.  Having a good friend of ours joining us at church.  Seeing the old grandpa that lives across from the clinic and is totally blind sitting outside working on braiding rope, and watching his face light up when I stop in to say good afternoon - he's smart as a whip and knows all of us nurses by our voices.  Joining in with the chorus of raised voices and hands at church....

"Bèni swa L'etènèl!"

-Kindra