The Ministry of Reconciliation Shared Through Silent Tears and Anguished Cries
"I called him by name, told him who I was, and the purpose for my visit.” And as a single silent tear rolls down the side of his face, an intubated man who cannot utter words, blinks twice toward the ceiling. This spoke volumes to Carmen, Beacon Christian Community Health Center’s Spiritual Care Coordinator, as she offered a prayer of salvation and the spoken Word of God to him.
Carmen, a licensed New York State Chaplain and Beacon staff member, is the spiritual coordinator to Beacon’s patients, offering Biblical insight as they spiritually and emotionally struggle with any medical issues that they may have. Although she had visited this Critical Care Unit patient several times on other occasions, she had always been interrupted by staff entering the room to attend to medical duties. In her personal prayer time, she often prayed that the Lord would "make a way for me to go in and not be interrupted so that I may be allowed to minister salvation to this man.” In answer to her prayers, this time, when she entered the room, Carmen found the patient alone, "with eyes open, staring at the ceiling.”
Carmen would also find that the patient had an open heart as well. For as she read Romans 10:10 to him, "…with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved,” and invited the man to receive Jesus’ salvation, he responded "yes” by “blinking hard, twice, as he stared up to the ceiling. Carmen said: "I left there feeling it’s done. I can’t explain it, but I felt God sent—and God accomplished.” Indeed, God’s Word never returns void (Isaiah 55:11) and will accomplish what concerns us (Psalm 138:8).
Just as Carmen first addressed her CCU patient, so our Father also personally calls each of us by name, tells us who He is, and His purpose for sending Jesus to earth. But for those whose familial identity has been marred by childhood abuse, it is sometimes hard to relate to a heavenly Father who “would allow young children to be abused.” Such was the sentiment expressed by a single mother of nine who Carmen visited while the patient was hospitalized due to an asthmatic condition.
During the visit, the young woman began to share with Carmen and poured out anguished words "like an open faucet” about the childhood hurts she had experienced. Her birth father had sexually abused the patient and her sisters for years before they were put into foster care – where similar abuses continued with different "father figures.” Carmen was careful to listen and "not respond as if she knew all the answers.” However, she described to the patient how, in spite of the evil that is in the world, there is a good God - a good Father - who is very real, even though the enemy of our souls would like to keep us from knowing Him.
The young woman continued to share the stunning details about her devastating upbringing, and the sad story of losing two husbands (one of whom was the father of three of her nine children) to gunfire in the streets of New York City. As she did so, Carmen sensed that the patient had been desperately waiting for someone to come into her life to listen to her painful stories and to recognize the pattern of broken fatherly relationships in her life. The emotional anguish she expressed communicated to Carmen her soul’s cry for healing. Carmen led the patient to reconcile with the Lord, her true and good Father, as they both prayed together through the young woman’s gushing tears and sobs. The patient’s desperate need for God’s healing was fully met through the truth of God’s Word, ministered through the love of God’s ambassador.
Conclusion
It was in a health care setting that a woman who poured out words like running water and a man who could not even speak one word, both found and professed reconciliation to the Lord. For Christian students entering the health care profession, the responsibility and privilege of becoming “ministers of reconciliation” is a broad, but irrevocable calling that may be exercised during many opportunities that will be given to them during their careers.
Life Application
2nd Corinthians 5:20 states that God has made an appeal through us to be His ambassadors as ministers of reconciliation. Having been “entrusted with the message of reconciliation,” how might your role look like as “an ambassador for Christ” to patients and colleagues in the health care setting?
Jeremiah 1:15 informs us that God sanctifies (and calls) His servants for the gospel before they are born. How might your call to the Gospel fit into your call to a healthcare profession and to fulfill the responsibilities that lie therein?
What could exercising good stewardship of your time while fulfilling both callings on your life look like while you are a student? Is God’s calling to be a “minister of reconciliation” valid in the middle of your heavy curriculum load?