2 Samuel 14:14
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Preface
During the entire month of April, till last week, I have experienced what now seems like a multitude of life-changing encounters that reinforced my deep love and worship to God my heavenly Father.
Healthcare professionals who work in various roles and regular duties were impacted greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many treatment areas were closed down and or minimized due to the changed hospital mission during this time.
Hospital officials developed ways in-which employees could gain their regular hours by being “redeployed” in other new hospital areas that came into toward treatment of those who in our community, were medically impacted by the Coronavirus.
One morning, my department supervisor offered each of us in our unit, if there were any volunteers who would be willing to work in the Covid-19 ICU unit in our hospital, I did not hesitate at the opportunity.
“He has told thee, man, what is good, and what God requires of thee: only to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8).
Hesed: Spirit filled Faithful Love in Action
For the next month and one week of working three, twelve hours workdays with some of the most brilliant, highly clinically trained, and brave healthcare critical care professionals who all tolerated me, I witnessed life-changes behind the scene life and death situations that greatly challenged each portion of my soul life.
Just in what seemed like a split second, my life, and my primary role changed but was not actualized until the day one of my new assignment. I went from a healthcare professional who sees essentially all non-critical caseloads, to essentially, all critical care patients whose very lives, hung in the balance.
I became a front-line “responder,” while placing my traditional routine and my personal life, to all of the collateral consequences that are associated with this service to our patients in need of care.
According to the CDC, the below information is a very brief clinical analysis of what responders experience during a crisis. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html
Responding to COVID-19 can take an emotional toll on you, and you may experience secondary traumatic stress. Secondary traumatic stress is stress reactions and symptoms resulting from exposure to another individual’s traumatic experiences, rather than from exposure directly to a traumatic event.
There are things you can do to reduce secondary traumatic stress reactions:
- Acknowledge that secondary traumatic stress can impact anyone helping families after a traumatic event.
- Learn the symptoms including physical (fatigue, illness) and mental (fear, withdrawal, guilt).
- Allow time for you and your family to recover from responding to the pandemic.
- Create a menu of personal self-care activities that you enjoy, such as spending time with friends and family, exercising, or reading a book.
- Take a break from media coverage of COVID-19.
- Ask for help if you feel overwhelmed or concerned that COVID-19 is affecting your ability to care for your family and patients as you did before the outbreak.
Very briefly, my primary role/function was to work directly with the nursing staff assigned to my shift, in any way possible, as I would like to say, “do all that I needed to do in order to make their jobs as easy as possible.”
This included answering phones, direct patient care [feeding, bathing, clothing, changing bed linen, emptying trash, taking and reporting vital signs, and glucose monitoring. Retrieving medications, equipment, supplies, and Personal Protection Equipment.]
I also was comforting both vented and non-vented patients, along with family and my colleagues at times. Perhaps the very challenging job responsibilities consisted of preparing expired patients to be made ready for the morgue. After this, my job was to perform the initial cleaning and turn-around of the room/equipment for the next patient.
Space will not permit me the ability to communicate all of the positive and not so positive events and circumstances of my experiences in ICU [a forthcoming book will present this information], nevertheless, as I transition at this point, I wish to highlight one event which leads to my being “pulled” out of the war zone.
I witnessed a code blue [cardio arrest] one day on one of our patients who was vented with the corona-virus. I have participated in many code blue as a chaplain and a health-care professional in my unit, saving more than we have lost.
But for some reason, this code blue at this time left me feeling for the first time in my life, ultimate “helplessness, inadequacy, and hopelessness” as a spiritual being trapped in a human body.
This death was the sixth transition that I have direct contact with, the very first code blue on the unit that I witnessed. As I watched from afar, my soul felt as though it was spilled water that was absorbed into a harden, dry earth. It was at this moment that I begin to ask God to rescue me from my “loving-kindness” service to our COVID-19 patients.
Kenosis
Rather He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Phil. 2:7
In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the term kenosis is defined as one’s willingness, out of love and devotion to Christ, the faithful follower will submit to this life’s trials, experiences, and calling of natural ‘self-emptiness’, in an effort at entering into the spiritual experiences that unite a follower to experience the same painful tension that Jesus felt, as the Son of Man and the Son of God, in His ministry in redeeming us.
The definition of kenosis above is my own, not in a theological means, but by an existential one. It was not until I too experienced my own ‘self-emptiness’ that I could in part, begin to relate to what the Son of Man experienced for sinful humanity.
To be “Christ-like” is indeed a very painful calling, condition, and a command which identifies while maturing those faithful servants who are truly yoked to Christ as His servant. Their ministry is not defined by traditions nor customs, not treads of the day.
An authentic spiritual expression of kenosis is better to describe as a form of humiliation of the Son of Man. An example is that the Messiah was omniscient [ just one of many attributes] of knowing everything. Yet, out of love for us in our helplessness and out of the will to be devoted to the Father in heaven, He willingly subjected Himself to all of our human experiences by becoming human, yet without sin.
Who else in all of the universe is better served and able to assist me as one of His servants, into the pathway to experience my own “self-emptiness” for those individuals in need of needs/ministry? Even though I cannot save nor redeem anyone on my own, I can be a servant in extending loving-kindness toward those who are my neighbors.
This experience in the ICU has been life-changing for me in many profound ways. Serving others until it hurts, God affirmed to me, my total dependency upon His strength and His spirit is serving Him and others.
As a front line responder, I was exposed to my weaknesses, vulnerabilities, fears, and sins. Yet, through His grace and mercy, I now can work out my soul salvation as a faithful follower, each day while yielding myself as a living sacrifice.
“Without humility, we keep all our defects; and they are only crusted over by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves!” -Quoted by Francois de La Rochefoucauld-
Closing sentiments
My experiences in the COVID-19 ICU were only possible by many souls praying with me and for me and others who were and are front-line responders during this pandemic.
I am humbled and thankful for my colleagues, and administrators who trusted my spirit, work ethic, and knowledge to serve those in need, both the staff and our patients during this phase of this pandemic.
My willingness to submit to this spiritual calling of loving-kindness was spiritually possible by the Holy Spirit’s continued ministry of regeneration, as I have chosen to remain “yoked” to Christ my Lord in any way to be an ambassador for His Kingdom.
In exchange for service toward others, the Lord of my spiritual maturity permitted me the opportunity in experiencing His identity, His consciousness as the Son of Man, yet also, the Son of God.
Some of the greatest takeaways are that all redeemed sinners throughout our lives on earth must continue to die of self-will, self-life while destroying the pride within our souls.
Another discovered truth during my redeployment to the COVID-19 unit is that such a calling in the environment where life and death are at war for the souls of people, such ministry serves as an “in-your-face” real-life critique in the validation of the relative nature of one’s calling/ministry as well as one’s Biblical theology.
Just as life and death vie for the souls of God’s people, such ministry also creates inner warring within the faithful follower of the Master. One’s faith, beliefs, and spiritual orientation will be tested to the limit.
I would like to challenge anyone who thinks that they have arrived in their spirituality, or perhaps, if your ministry has become “routine” and predictable, to consider this.
I encourage that you come out of your comfort zone, and disrobe yourself of one’s titles, personalities, privilege, influence, and one’s self-sufficiency, and volunteer or serve those whose lives hang in the balance.
“If life is loved simply for itself, it is lost. But if it is lost in the well-being of others, then by such a loss, truthful and meaningful Life is saved and Kept.” The life of self is death, the Death of self is Life!
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Grace and Peace
Brother Alonzo E. Thornton