It was a bustling evening shift. I went around emptying catheters, changing pads, and charting how much fluid has gone into and come out of each healing body. I put in a new IV and did some admission teaching about surgery the next day. I checked on a new postoperative patient’s vitals. Truthfully, it was all just the kind of busy work I needed to keep my hands occupied while my mind grasppled with what to do.

Because while I worked, one of my patients laid quietly on her bed just staring at the wall. The morning had brought disappointing news. The surgery did not succeed like we hoped. As I quietly watched her, I remembered how emotional and psychological pain can create quite a chasm around a patient. Even the ones you know best can be difficult to reach… but the divide of race, religion, language, and culture between me and this patient made the gap seem even wider. I longed to help her. I just didn’t know how.

But later that evening came Manicure Monday. Fun music blasted. New faces of our female crew members poured into the ward carrying nail polish, lotion, and crafts for a good time loving on our ladies. I watched my patient’s blank stare start to refocus and brighten as the festive atmosphere caught hold. When she showed me her old glittery nail polish, I felt like I found my opportunity. I could at least remove the chipped nail polish so she can have a shiny new manicure!

I quickly retrieved the nail polish remover, grabbed some gauze, gently took my patient’s hand, and started scubbing…

and scrubbing…

and scrubbing…

But the nail polish would not come off.

I felt my blood pressure rising. I scrubbed harder, faster, changed angles, let the saturated gauze soak the nail… but the blue glitter paint refused to budge.

My heart began to scream at my head: We can’t fix it. We can’t help her the way we hoped. Now all I want is to get this stupid nail polish off so she can have the best manicure ever to make up for the fact that we can’t do what she needed us to do. And it won’t. Come. OFF! I can’t even give her a decent manicure. 

My mind spiraled and my hands scrubbed and I was so consumed in my own thoughts… I almost missed my friend taking pictures of our ladies that night.

“Erin. Erin. She wants a picture with you. She wants you to look up.” She pointed to the lense.

I slapped on a smile.

Click.

I looked over at my patient. Her face was glowing. Her smile lit up the room. She looked so happy…

Then why was I feeling so miserable?

I tried to content myself with getting most of the old nail polish off. I retrieved the bag of new nail polish. I held them out to her and watched her eyes widen with excitement.

She picked a color and I started painting… and praying.

I took my frustrations to God and heard a familiar reply in my heart from the Great Physician…

Erin, when did I ever ask you to fix it? When did I say that surgery or even a simple manicure had to be successful in your eyes? All I ever asked you to do was to love her. That’s all that is required of you. Just love her. 

Here lies the struggle I have time and time again. All too often I believe it’s my job fix it. Whatever “it” is.

And this job description crisis gets tricky because it is half true – Part of my job is trying to heal physical injuries or illness. Part of my job is relieving pain and finding solutions to problems. Part of my job is emptying catheters and taking vital signs and charting. Part of my job is smiles and hugs and Manicure Mondays.

But all that is just the pieces of it.

My real job, the Great Commission of my life, is to love. Only when my actions flow from a deep and true place of love, do all these parts make a beautiful and eternal whole.

And, oh, so many days I still cannot understand why things don’t turn out the way we hoped. I struggle to imagine how it could all be made right. How can such darkness and suffering be overcome? How can beauty come from this? Confronted by such heartache, I can’t see why a manicure means anything at all…

But it does.

It matters.

And more than that, it heals. Not because it’s perfect or pretty… but because it comes from a place of love.

There is so much we do not know or understand. There is so much we might never, despite our best efforts and most faithful prayers, see healed this side of heaven. But love will last longer than any surgery… or manicure. And because He loves us here, right here and now, the Great Physician is still at work. All He asks of us is this…

Just love.