This I believe: I was born to be a servant

I was born into a loving family, fifth in the birth order, and baby of the clan. It seems that almost everyone knows that the baby of the family gets spoiled rotten, no matter how much the parents deny it. For the foundational seven years of my life, I enjoyed this position that life had so kindly handed to me. My little being was surrounded by those who would take care of my every need.

When I was seven my little sister came on the scene, unexpected, and the self-declared “icing on the cake”.  She was small and precious with blue eyes and a contagious laugh.  Needless to say I no longer held the same position I had previously. While my first years were spent being waited on hand and foot, today I declare my belief that despite all this, I was born to serve.

Early in my life, one phone call tipped the Earth off its axis, and it stopped revolving around me. I was 12 years old, coming in from a glorious adventure in the forest. As I came near the house, I heard a phone ring. That was the call, the news, which changed my life.

My cousin, near to my age and one of my closest friends, was trying to play football with her brothers. As they tumbled about the frozen ground, her legs began to go numb and she had to lie down. After her symptoms grew worse, she was taken to Hershey Medical Center where she was diagnosed with Ewings sarcoma, a rare bone cancer with a 10 percent chance of long term survival.

Both of us were homeschool at the time, perfect for two sisters-at-heart who did not want to be separated. Through the next two years I ended up with her more than at my own home. I was right there with her whether she was in the hospital for a dose of that ‘poison’ or at home hiding from microscopic killers.

 Call it a paradigm shift or a preteen waking up to the world’s realities; whatever you call it, things changed. Reality would never revolve around me again. As I tried my best to fight the cancer with her, my eyes opened wider to Whom the world did revolve around.

I knew Christ personally for a few years and knew about him since before I had learned to talk. Yet, this period in my life transformed my relationship with God, like nothing I had ever experienced. Christ has a way of showing up when you need him and I can tell you that his presence was strong, and personal, and undeniable as we walked that road for 2 years.

During this period, I noticed my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents, give willingly of themselves. I saw healthcare workers toiling around the clock. I observed my sick cousin, voluntarily and selflessly spending hours and days sewing pillows for father’s ill patients.  I witnessed people who were working for something bigger them themselves

My cousin’s life and death were chisels that started to mold me into who I was born to become. As life went on, I felt those seeds of service, which were planted during the cancer years, grow. As I entered my final year of high school, I heard about the poverty in Haiti. Doing nothing was not an option. By the summer after high school, I was on my second trip to that impoverished Caribbean island. As we lived in tents, in poor conditions, and worked from sun up to sun down, I felt deeply at home.

I had been looking for something meaningful, something beyond York, Pennsylvania. Through my late teens I had begun to look up to a role model and was inspired by him. This man was willing to hang out with the people on the fringes of society. He treated and healed those with horrific flesh eating skin diseases. When these same people he was serving, deserted him when he needed them most, he cooked them breakfast and welcomed them back. Humbly, he even washed the feet of the man whose betrayal ultimately led to his death. I desired to live my life in such a manner.

As fall neared, football season started, and freshman were shopping for dorm supplies, I was packing my suitcase for another destination. The parentless, unloved, children of a third world country were calling out to me. The longer I stayed put, the louder the call seemed to be. If I postponed going to attend college, I would have been too distracted to learn. My heart yearned to do something.

  While living at the orphanage, a young man asked me to help him. He had an infected abdominal wound. I was speechless and clueless. He was clearly very ill and I had nothing to do for him.  I spent four frustrating months there; seeing the sick and the hurting and having no physical way to help.

I came home for Christmas searching for the answer to one burning question. How can I make a difference? I didn’t have much time, less than a month, and I was back on a plane. This time I was going half way around the world to Uganda, Africa. This continent was no less weighty on my heart and no less clear in showing me my inadequacy. I was 18 years old, I could play basketball, and hunt deer; I had nothing tangible to offer. The call to serve was clear, the question was ‘how?’.

Still pondering that haunting question, I visited a hospital in Uganda. In a bed, all alone, lay a baby girl. I walked closer to her, knelt down, took her frail hand in mine, and began to pray for her tiny body and her little soul. I remembered how comforting Christ had been to me through my trials and I wanted to be a comfort to this little withered child. The nurses told me her mother had left when she learned the child’s diagnosis. I sat in that smoldering hot hospital room, next to this small child, and at that moment, that second when I looked at her face and saw the lines of pain on her forehead, I wanted with all my heart to be a nurse.

In a wave of memories, I thought of all the nurses who had cared for my cousin while she fought her hidden slayer. At the same time I saw all of the faces of the people who needed physical help I could not offer. It was as clear to me as if it were spoken out loud. I came home from Africa passionate to become a nurse.

The years of college ran by quickly. A’s came not because of intelligence, or aim at reward, but because every single thing I learned might help me save a life in the future, or at least relieve suffering. I was driven to learn as much as I could, always considering the lack of resources I might encounter in a third world country. I knew that in rural Africa, I might not be able to phone a friend if ever I didn’t know what to do.

I am passionate about nursing because I believe with all my being that I was born to serve people. Nursing is the key to fulfilling my destiny; my outlet to share the love that has been given to me. Nursing is the tool I have been given to serve hurting people.

This belief changes everything about nursing. Interactions with patients surge with care and compassion. I don’t go to work for a pay check or to get through one more twelve hour shift. I approach each day as my mission not my occupation.

Being born to serve makes me passionate about becoming the best there is. I am fully devoted to striving to become skilled enough to work in the best ICU in America. Yet, I want to be humble enough to change the putrid abdominal wound of a homeless man in a third world country.  I believe I was born for this.