A Blessing

Peace in a Box® (detail)
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[]

Today was an +amazing+ day at work in the truest sense of that word and I am not really sure how to describe it. It seemed that every encounter I had with a patient or staff member was somehow charged with love and meaning in a way that I’ve rarely felt before. It was as if I had been jolted into a kind of “receptive” mode, being opened up to be touched by others.

One example was a schizophrenic man with terminal cancer that I rounded on. He was very childlike (we call it “regressed”) and I noticed he had two teddy bears in his bed with him. I asked him about them and he told me how his mother had discouraged him from bringing them to the hospital, but he was lonely and they helped “make me feel good.” He then took one and hugged it tight to his chest and with eyes closed said, “When I feel bad or lonely I do this and say ‘please hug me Jesus through this teddy bear'… and I believe He does.” I nearly burst into tears.

After leaving his room I shared what he had said with the unit clerk who is an elderly African-American woman. She became very serious and told me that people need something physical they can touch as a way of connecting to Jesus, “like wearing a cross necklace and touching it when you need to feel closer to Him.” I was then doubly blown away because I had not expected her to say anything so beautiful and true.

That was my day today, one blessing following another with little to no lag time between them. It has left me feeling bewildered and not a little shook up.