10 Years of Being a Christian Nurse

Coming up in June 2023, I will have been a registered nurse for a complete 10 years! That’s really hard to believe. I specifically remember being a dripping wet baby nurse right out of the bath tub of nursing school and thinking in my head, “Man, I can’t wait to have 10 years under my belt so I will actually know what I’m doing, have experience, and other newbie nurses will be asking me questions instead of me having to ask everyone else how to do everything!” As always, you want what you don’t have, and after you get it, things are never as glorious as you anticipated. Don’t get me wrong; the last 10 years have been great in many ways, but there fails to be this overwhelming sense of satisfaction that comes with knowing I’m a 10-year veteran now. But what I can say is that I’ve learned a LOT! More specifically, I’ve learned a lot about balancing my job (or career) as a nurse with my life as a Christian. That’s what I want to talk about in this article. If you are a nurse and a Christian, this should be of special interest to you. No matter what your job is really, many of the things discussed here will cross professional borders; so stick around.

Why I Became a Nurse

A regular question I get over and over while I’m taking care of patients at the bedside is, “Why did you go into nursing?” From the best I can tell, people assume that every nurse had some “calling” from above to enter this profession that is centered on service and humanitarian aide. When I was fresh out of school (and still in school even) people were deflated to learn that the skies did not tear open, angels did not descend, and God did not speak to me like He did to Moses and call me to go deliver patients from the bondage of the discomfort in their bowels! My answer was unromantic. I told people the truth, “I went into nursing because it promises a relatively quick degree path, versatility, good money, three-day work weeks, and job certainty.” People would reply, “You didn’t become a nurse to help people?!” They would say this in such a way as to suggest that I was a greedy, money hungry, and lifeless heathen who depreciated the role of service that comes with the nursing profession. I would explain, “Yes, I get to help people too, but I can help people no matter what profession I’m doing.” Realize that I was 16 years old when I decided I would be a nurse and 20 years old when I actually became one. Fast forward ten years, and I have grown to be a little more romantic about what I do. Being a nurse, especially in the emergency and trauma setting, has allowed me to see firsthand the impact that my work can and does (at times) have on the lives of people, people created in the image of God, people that are just as spiritually valuable as anyone that I call family or my brother and sister-in-Christ. If someone asks me why I’m a nurse today, I can truly say that it provides an opportunity for me to help people in a truly impactful and personal way that other career paths simply do not. At the same time, it often creates great opportunities for sharing the gospel with people who are in miserable circumstances in life and vulnerable to accepting help. That’s my backstory in brief. 

I’m a Christian First

No matter what profession or job you undertake, you must always remember that you are a Christian first, if indeed you are a Christian. I’m a Christian first, and then I’m a nurse. I’m a Christian first, and then I’m a car mechanic. I’m a Christian first, and then I’m an English teacher. And you also have to remember that you covenanted with God to become unto Him a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1; 2 Tim. 4:6), but not just any sacrifice: a burnt offering. Burnt offerings under the Old Testament were completely consumed by fire on the altar, nothing leftover (Lev. 1:9; 8:21). In the case of the consecration of the priests in Leviticus 8-10, the idea in the burnt offering ritual was that the animal lay on the altar representative of the priest himself, and the complete burning of this animal signified that the man offering it was being completely consecrated (i.e., dedicated) to God, completely sanctified (i.e., set apart) to Him, no part of him excluded. I’ve heard Christians say that they don’t have to have biblical authority for what they do in their private life. This statement signifies that their private life is not consecrated to God, just their church life. I’ve heard Christians say, “You have to separate your religious views from your political views,” signifying that here is another arena of your life that is to be kept back from the sanctification process that was initiated at baptism. Apparently, when Paul said to “present your bodies a living sacrifice,” he didn’t mean our entire selves… No such thing. “Let God be true but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4). When we become a Christian, this affects every facet of our lives, including those parts that occur between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm, Monday thru Fri, or in the case of most nurses, 7 pm and 7 am, Thursday thru Saturday. I think it’s important to establish this concept before going into the next part about my 10 years of being a Christian nurse.

Lead Me Not Into Temptation, but Deliver Me from Evil

The Good Lord taught His disciples to pray for deliverance from temptation (Matt. 6:13), and you better start praying for this if you are going to become a nurse, because you’re gonna face a lot of temptation! Here’s the type of temptation you will face: temptation (pressure) to work on Sunday morning and forsake the “assembling of ourselves together” (1 Cor. 11:17-26; 16:1-2 ESV; Heb. 10:24-25) to commune, worship, and encourage one another, temptation to retaliate and be unkind to belligerent and inconsiderate patients (Matt. 5:39), temptation to speak evil of your nurse manager with the other nurses (Eph. 6:5-7; 1 Peter 2:18-20), temptation to give in to the flirtations and enticements of sexually immoral nurses and doctors (Prov. 5:1-6), temptation to engage in “drunkenness, revelries, and drinking parties” with your coworkers after hours and at holiday parties (1 Peter 4:3), temptation to entertain filthy joking (Eph. 5:4), temptation to lie for the sake of “no report” policies  (Matt. 5:37; Col. 3:9; Rev. 22:15); temptation to get angry and explode when the stress of work becomes too much (Gal. 5:20; Eph. 4:26-27), temptation to slander and backbite about other nurses and coworkers (Matt. 12:36; 2 Cor. 12:20), temptation to prioritize work and money over your godly responsibilities to your family, church, and neighbors for the sake of contract and bonus pay (Eccl. 5:10; Matt. 15:3-7; Heb. 13:5; 1 John 2:16). I’m sure there are other temptations that I have left off, but these are the ones that I have been tempted with over my 10-year career. Some of these are temptations that I unfortunately fell prey to over and over early on in my career. Others on the list I had no desire to take part in, but I realized they were present temptations nonetheless, and they will always be true in this profession (i.e., situational lying). And as I said, many of these things are true of most any profession. One of the most prevalent and harmful sins on this list that you will observe in the nursing environment is slander: slander of managers, charge nurses, and fellow coworkers. Nurses are some of the very worst slanderers and complainers. I was one of the worst. It struck me one day when I was reading Ephesians 6:5-7 where Paul commands servants to be submissive and respectful to their masters that this certainly had application to modern day employee-employer relationships. This humbled me. If there’s one person that will become the object of derision and slander in a nursing department, you can be sure it’s the nurse manager. Summing this point up, know what you are getting into when you become a nurse. If you’re a Christian first, remember you are undertaking spiritual warfare at all times (Eph. 6:12-13), and the nursing world presents yet another battleground. 

“You Actually Can Work on Sundays”

Speaking of temptations and spiritual battlegrounds, I want to address one of the most difficult battles you will fight in this profession, especially if you are working in a hospital on the in-patient side. I will disclaim what I’m about to write by saying this: I realize many nurses state they are Christians and find nothing wrong with working on Sunday morning. However, through personal Bible study and deep conviction, I do not believe I can work on Sunday morning and forsake the assembly of the church. I did a nurse externship at a large hospital after my first complete year of nursing school. It was a 5-week externship in an inpatient cardiac unit. I had told the HR dept. when they interviewed me that I could not work on Sunday morning. But sure enough, the first day of work I got my schedule for the next 5 weeks and they had me paired up with a preceptor who worked almost every Sunday from 7 am to 7 pm. When I went and talked to the nursing manager of the department about why I could not work these hours, this “Christian” lady informed me that it was actually okay for me to work on Sunday morning. It was amazing! All I needed was for her to tell me those comforting and truth-filled words. All the sudden my convictions and stated reasons with biblical support were nullified! This Christian woman and interpreter of the law of God told me what I needed to believe, and that’s all I needed! I jest of course. But this is what you can expect from most of your supervisors even if they are “Christian,” even if there is a policy about not discriminating due to religious convictions. I responded to this manager by asking her, “What if I was a Muslim and said I couldn’t work on Friday (their religious holy day)? Or what if I was a Jew and said I couldn’t work on the Sabbath?” She did not respond to my question and diverted immediately. Thankfully, she allowed me to finish my externship, but she made clear that I would not be working on her unit. I never raised my voice. I was kind and very respectful to her during the whole process. But I would not be working there. I was 20 years old at the time. I was used to my faith being put to the test in ways like this throughout college, but that didn’t make this incident any less difficult. I prayed and worried about it in the moment. I called my good friend at the time, Abbey Lorton, a nurse who I went to church with, and she encouraged me about it all. She had gone through the same thing before. Another emergency room nurse I know recently asked me to write a letter on her behalf to her supervisors, articulating from the Bible why it’s wrong for New Testament Christians to forsake the assembly of the church on the Lord’s Day. I wrote the letter. She was relieved of her position anyway. This is the main reason that I worked the 7 pm to 7 am night shift for about five years in the Emergency Dept. setting. It was tough. There were some Saturday nights that I would have to work all night and then go to church. I would stand in the back the whole service to help me stay awake. When I worked at the Emergency & Trauma Dept. in Tulsa, OK, I would usually work three night shifts in a row starting on Sunday evening. I would go to church all day and then work all night till 7 am. As a result I was so tired that I had no problem sleeping when I got home. This got me on a night-shift sleeping pattern until my work week was finished on Wednesday, and I would try to flip back to staying awake during the day for Thur.-Sun. again. My body went through a lot of stress from all that. Adding to the mix, I was going to school full time during the day for the first two years. I ended up on blood pressure medication and had severe headaches at least once a week. But I didn’t have to work on Sunday morning. You do what you want to do. If you’re convicted enough about something, you’ll stick to your guns. I wanted to be a trauma nurse, and so I did it. You can be a nurse and not work on Sunday mornings. It’s true. But you might lose a job or two. And you might decide it’s not worth all the hoops you have to jump through to do it. But it can be done. The last paragraph is not about me bragging about myself. It’s about me encouraging you to stay true to your convictions and the word of God. Other stated Christians will disagree with this conviction. That’s okay. They won’t be standing before God on your behalf on the day of judgment. It will be you and God, not you and them.

Turn the Other Cheek

“Turn the other cheek” in the medical world could just mean “roll over in bed so I can wipe the other side.” A bit of a detour, but one time a nurse tech and friend named Chris was holding a patient on his side while I was cleaning him up. I went down to apply a good wipe and out came the longest wave of flatulence I’ve ever witnessed in my life, and I got a front row seat from about 18 inches away. My hair was blowing back in the wind (not really), and at about the 30 second mark I decided to just act like I was sailing and enjoy the ride. There was another time that a patient came in by ambulance and she was barely conscious. She was severely dehydrated from diarrhea (C-diff.). A gracious nursing student dawned body armor with me (gown, gloves, and mask) and we went to work cleaning this lady up… for the next 60 minutes! The patient was sitting in a small crater sized dip in the stretcher and she was losing the contents of her bowels at such a tremendous rate that her whole pelvis was baptized in brown. The nursing student and I would have it all cleaned up, we would have just placed all the newly soiled linens in the hamper, and then upon turning around from this five second chore, the patient was already baptized all over again. You think I’m joking perhaps. I’m not. It was a whole hour of this purgatory. 

Okay, I guess I got way off track there, but I just wanted to relay what you’re getting in to if you are a starry-eyed, sorority girl expecting to go to work as a nurse with white scrubs on, and everything is going to be rainbows and butterflies. Really though, one of the hardest things you will have to learn is turning your other cheek. I was a bit prideful and hot-headed as a 20 year old coming right out of nursing school. I was very nice and kind to about 75% of my patients, don’t get me wrong. But about 25% of your patients will put your Christian values to the test. There are some patients who are demon-possessed. They suck your soul of its life. They berate you. They curse at you. They spit at and hit you. They threaten to hurt you and everyone else in the facility. It didn’t take long working in the ER in downtown Tulsa for me to get jaded, very jaded. I, along with most other nurses, tired of this constant berating from ill-mannered patients. Patients would complain, “I don’t know why I came here!” I would retort back, “I don’t know why you did either! Why did you?” They would respond, “What’s your name? I’m going to report you to your supervisor!” I egged them on with, “Here it is! And spell it right, A-A-R-O-N. Tell them all about me!” Am I proud that I would act this way? No, I’m not. I look back at those days, and it is comical in one vein, but it’s very shameful in another. I did not demonstrate a Christian spirit, and this occurred at least once a week. I didn’t start out that way, but constantly working in this environment wore me down and brought out the worst side of me. There was one day that I was “kicking out” an old, homeless lady at 6:30 am on a Monday morning. This was the standard check-out time at Hotel St. John (aka: the Emergency Dept.). The lady took my hand and said, “Honey, slow down for just a minute.” She was a very sweet lady. Yes, she just wanted a bed to sleep in for a few hours under the guise of needing medical attention, but she was really very sweet and made me realize how calloused I had become. It really woke me up to the person I had become from working in this difficult environment. I can point to that day as the turning point when I realized that I needed to change. I had to actually live what I said I believed, “Turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:39). “Be kind and compassionate to one another” (Eph. 4:32). “Walk in love” (Eph. 5:2). These are not qualities that you will learn naturally from working in this environment. You have to be disciplined and deliberate about living out these Christians attitudes.

Conclusion

People often ask me, “Do you like nursing?” I often respond with “No.” But that’s only a half-answer. It is extremely difficult to work three 12-hour shifts each week and still like what you do in the nursing profession. There might be glimpses of joy, but the work is so demanding physically and psychologically that it saps all the joy away. Now, I work prn (as needed), which means I only have to work about once every other week. I’ve been doing this for three years now at a local Emergency Dept., and it has been a very nice arrangement. Each shift is somewhat fresh, I don’t dread going into work, and if it is a terrible shift, I have the solace of knowing that I don’t have to work for the next five days usually. I’m able to enjoy the interaction with my patients, and the fulfillment of the job is much more appreciated. It’s a rewarding profession in many ways, but it is also one of the most taxing. Nursing isn’t for everyone, and new nurses usually find out in about 6 months. The turnover rate in the Emergency Dept. is very high. But, if someone were to ask me, “Are you glad you became a nurse?” I would say “Yes.” All things considered, I’m glad I’m a nurse. But more than that, I’m glad I’m a Christian who is being washed in the blood of the Lamb, and I’m a Christian first. That’s what I’ve learned in 10 years of being a Christian nurse.