Healthy Body

Weekly Strength

June 28, 2010

Perhaps you have felt like the RN who used to do Hospice/Home Health Care on call. She told me that the hardest part was going in the middle of the night to a home to people she had never met. “The pt had died & I didn't know them.”

 After listening I suggested,

Perhaps we might re-frame that: Hospice/Home Health Care is like a Healthy body; some of us are the hands, some are the feet. Already, sister, I perceive that you have the heart and the hands but you say you’ve never laid eyes on them before. Realize, however, other members of the team have seen and touched them before you!

 

In the dark hour that night you brought your heart and hands and tears to them - you served them. Yes, you felt unsure, but you were there! You cared. You delivered heartfelt capable care. You were an extension of those who have seen and cared for them before.

 

Day after day, night after night, that is what it is like when our team [e.g. Hospice] delivers care as a healthy functioning body.

 

 

Many of us provide direct contact, frequently at the front line.

A number of us touch the patients and families only on rare occasions.

Some of us provide support to those who are up front yet without client contact.

 

All of us combined make a healthy body delivering heartfelt capable care through hands, feet, heart, tears – every component of our being.

  – Chaplain Robin

"Count Your Blessings"

Wishing to dispose of his home, a British gentleman went to see a friend who was in the real estate business and, describing his house and grounds to the man, asked him to write an advertisement which he could put in the newspapers. His friend acted upon request and then read what he had written to the home-owner.

“Read that again,” said the man who wanted to sell his house. His friend obliged, to hear this astonishing remark:

“The house is not for sale. All my life I’ve wanted a place just like the one you have described. But I never knew I had it until I heard what you have written about it.

There is a grand old song: “Count your blessings, name them one by one.”

If some of us would do that very thing, we should be happier.    Source:        The Pilgrim

 

 

Count Your Blessings

Music: Johnson Oatman, Jr., 1856-1922       Words: Edwin O. Excell, 1851-1921

Vs. 1

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

  When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

  And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Chorus

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

  Count your blessings, See what God hath done;

Count your blessings, Name them one by one;

  Count your many blessings, See what God hath done.

Vs. 2

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

  Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, ev’ry doubt will fly,

  And you will be singing as the days go by.

Vs. 3

When you look at others with their lands and gold,

  Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold

Count your many blessings, money cannot buy:

  Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

Vs. 4

So, amid the conflict, whether great or small,

  Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

  Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

  

Consider:

"If you can’t be thankful for what you receive, be thankful for what you escape! 

Source:        The Pilgrim

- Chaplain Robin

How might you see your situation with new eyes?

Weekly Strength

June 15, 2010

Observe the insight of a nine year old son of a Baptist minister in 1904 sensing his father’s reluctance to fulfill a preaching obligation because his wife was too ill to accompany him on the journey and perhaps too ill to be left behind while away, 'Daddy, don't you think that if God wants you to preach today, He will take care of Mother while you're away?' The father thought aloud, 'Yes son, I know He will.'

Assured, he kissed them goodbye and hurried off to fulfill the preaching engagement as planned and upon return, was pleasantly surprised to find his wife greatly improved. From her bed she handed him a poem she had written in his absence- a poem of comfort inspired by their son's simple faith.

"Be not dismayed what'er betide, God will take care of you,

Beneath his wings of love abide, God will take care of you.

God will take care of you, Through every day, O're all the way;

He will take care of you, God will take care of you.

Reverend Martin placed the words on the music stand of his organ and in a short time composed a tune suiting his wife's words.

God will take care of you is a real hymn of encouragement. It assures us that

'through days of toil, 'in times of danger or need,' in fact, 'no matter what the test,'

God will take care of His people. Of course, that's a premise which is Bible based.

Thank God for the little nine year old boy who saw it more clearly than his preacher Dad did at first.

How might your situation be seen with new eyes?

- Chaplain Robin