As I stood in the hospital room with the family, around the body of one who had just taken their last breath on this earth, a nurse entered the room.
The wife of the deceased said, this precious nurse sang my beloved to sleep last evening when he was so agitated; she has a lovely voice.
The nurse embraced the wife. She leaned her forehead forward until their heads touched, and she began to sing:
When peace like river attendeth my ways
When sorrow like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul
It is well, with my soul
It is well, it is well, with my soul
The room was silent for a moment.
The widow had a couple of brief questions that the nurse answered tenderly with assurance. Then she left the room; there was other work to do.
I left that room thankful for the followers of Jesus who out of their discipleship have started so many excellent centers of healing and compassion. I was thankful that some of those centers have retained their mission and vision to address the whole person; body, mind, spirit. I am thankful for a nurse whose own walk with Christ is not constrained by a false bifurcation of work and faith, nor was her spiritaulity so sentimantilized to make it distracting - she was on point.
This experience leads me to pray for businesses and institutions; that their mission and policies would reflect values of human flourishing, and reject the silos of task, faith, work, home, etc. I am also led to pray for followers of Jesus, that faith would be integrated in every arena of life - as Abraham Kuyper once said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!"
In that moment, in that room - the nurse was like Jesus, comforting the sorrow in Mary and Martha. And His comfort is Good.
May your business, your enterprise, your vocation be one in which the goodness of God and purpose of humanity is cultivated and celebrated.
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