Failure to Launch

Last night I failed. A psychotic patient was asking for coffee and I made a deal with her. . . I would make coffee and she could have some if she promised to go to bed afterward. I of course made her decaf and served it up nice and hot. She had had all of her sleep medications and was not sleeping. It was 3 a.m. and I was desperate for a quick fix. I couldn’t take much more of her behavior. I really love these patients and see how except for God’s grace there go I. . . so I made a special pot of coffee. Fixed it just the way I knew she liked it and brought it to her, all with the expectation that she would drink it and go to bed. She had it in her hands for 20 seconds and dropped the cup and all and ruined her pajamas and robe with wet, hot coffee. I then had to change her, wash her clothes and explain to her why she could not have another cup of decaffeinated coffee. This is a patient that used to be violent and abusive to the staff but for some reason, maybe God or my sling that I wear for my broken shoulder never hurt me. I really expected her to drink the coffee and go back to bed. She is such a broken person and so mentally ill. She is expected to be turned over to the state hospital within days. What heartbreak to someone like me. I so long to make a great difference in everyone’s life that touches my life.

The first couple of days with Jane I read to her from her Bible. I sang to her all the old hymns which she knew and sang along with. It still amazes me the amount of patients that come into my hospital with Bibles and a strong Christian faith. What is going on here? At least 65% of my patients are Christians???? What is happening . . . . I am baffled! I spent hours reading to her from Job or Psalms. She had been abused as a child and then when she was happily married, she lost her youngest child in a drowning accident in her own backyard pool. Her husband has been supportive but wants her committed to the state mental facility. He is overwhelmed and cannot go any further with this wife that is so damaged.

I was then reprimanded by the nurse supervisor for giving in to a patient that had no right to have coffee made for her in the middle of the night. I learned that experience is a great teacher as I was washing and drying her clothes at 3 in the morning along with doing my regular job. What have I learned. . . What haven’t I learned? I love people and I root for them. I want them to break out and be healed. How does the healing that is so prolific in the Bible work? I spent several hours reading the New Testament to Jane and the best part that she really loved, was the parts in red. You know them. The red parts where Jesus is quoted, “He healed all of their diseases.” I would get goose bumps reading this stuff to her. But there I sat, with a broken shoulder, a broken marriage, a broken reason for being here in Colorado Springs (to go to Andrew Wommacks school), and what can I offer her? They will come and get her and take her to the state hospital. They have taken patients that I have loved and cared for before . . . to this awful place of doom. Why can’t I help her and why can’t my own shoulder be healed and why can’t I find someone who will love me and want to spend their life with me, despite all of my shortcomings and faults. Who knows?

I am just thinking. . .I came out here with a car and the things I could fit in my car. . .black garbage bags full of clothes, towels and a blow up mattress. I came here with big faith. Faith that could move a mountain. What did I find? A land lord that took me for 900.00 and and then a second room to rent in a house where I fell down the stairs to the basement on the second night I was here. I experienced so much pain in this shoulder break that it was unequaled to anything except childbirth. The pain I experienced on a daily basis, caused me to toss my cookies and lose 20 pounds in just the first month. I work as many hours as possible and my life is filled with patients, work and sleep. And yet there is something in me that expects a great miracle. Am I a failure to launch or is it just not time for God to sweep in and lovingly restore me to my purpose in life? My heart cannot be more broken . . . for myself, for those that I treat and for the future. I was told by well meaning Christians that “I did not have enough faith”, or “maybe it was not God’s timing for me.” WHATEVER!!!! Maybe I am just a rocket with a “failure to launch”. Who knows?