Tag: faith

Faith in Healthcare, Part 1: Suffering and Healing

This is part 1 of 2 posts I will have on faith in healthcare. This first post is from article I submitted and that was originally published in The Community Magazine of the North Carolina Free Will Baptists Foundation.

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I was called to a patient’s room one evening. A patient, in the final stages of an incurable cancer, would not answer any of the medical team’s questions. He would not make any decisions about his medical care. For reasons clear and unclear, he was angry and bitter towards the team and family.  The medical team recognized the emotional distress the patient was in and as a member of the interdisciplinary team, I was asked to talk with the patient. 

The patient believed the cancer was a punishment from God. Not only did he think it was a punishment from God but he believed he deserved the pain and suffering that came with it.  The patient had not forgiven himself for moments in his past and he was afraid he would go to hell. So by not making any medical decisions, he kept himself from going to hell and continued to punish himself in suffering.  

We talked about suffering, forgiveness and healing.  The patient was able to hear about and feel the presence of a loving God who loved this patient as a precious child. This precious child was worthy of forgiveness and a life that may have been filled with pain and suffering, did not have to end that way.  He made some important decisions in the next few days and within a week, he died peacefully with family by his side and a heart free of pain and suffering. I have no doubt he was welcomed into Heaven and into the loving arms of Jesus Christ, who understood his suffering better than anyone. 

The matriarch of the family had a brain injury. She was unresponsive and relied on a ventilator to breathe. The swelling increased and her body became dependent on medicines and machines to keep her alive.  In a meeting with the family, they shared that the patient made her wishes clear a long time ago, when it came to her healthcare and healing.  If her body were only alive because of machines and medicines, she wanted her family to free her of the pain and let her go to Heaven.  In fact she stated, “Give me three days on the machines and if I don’t rise like Jesus or Lazarus, let me go.” 

The team acknowledged and respected the faithful decisions of the patient and family. In the time allowed, the team and family worked together to do all they could for the patient’s care and wellbeing.  Three days later, there was still no improvement in the patient.  Her family, her children and grandchildren, were taught about faith from this matriarch. They agreed with the patient’s wishes. Aggressive measures were stopped and the ventilator (or mechanical support as I like to call it) was removed.  She passed away peacefully and surrounded by family (or her life support as I like to call it).  The matriarch became the miracle they prayed for, completely healed in heaven.

I share these two stories because they are two extreme differences in faith.  One faith could have made the patient suffer a painful life and an equally painful death if he wasn’t reminded of God’s love and grace. The other faith knew that death was a part of life and that God provided for both, a life on earth and a life in heaven.  I share these two stories as examples of how faith can have an impact on healthcare.  As patients, families and medical teams journey through the life of healthcare and healing, the role of faith has become an integral part of the holistic plan of care.

Hospitals and physicians have recognized that in caring for the patient it is important to provide holistic care, recognizing that faith and spirituality are important factors in the care of a patient.   It is so important that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization now requires healthcare organizations to include a spiritual assessment in the care of patients.  That requirement can include professional chaplains as members of the healthcare team.  

As a board certified hospital chaplain, I see every single day how faith has been an important factor in a patient’s life; and many times, the most important factor.  More and more, patients acknowledge that their faith and spirituality are needed coping mechanisms in their wellbeing and in their healing. Their faith has provided them a strong prayer life, using spiritual practices from their faith tradition; practices that bring them comfort, assurance and hope.  Their faith reminds them of the need for a strong support system from their family, friends and their faith community. Their faith reminds them that God is there, when they are weary and burdened, in need of healing and rest.

When you are in the hospital, you are in a vulnerable state of being. You are humbled into the confines of a hospital room, where you have to rely on other people to take care of you. You also have to let go of any control that you might have in the uncontrollable.  Your faith will allow you to see how God is able to provide in the midst of your vulnerability because you are having to fully rely on God, in ways you never imagined or were prepared for.

That faith can help a patient, as it did with the matriarch I mentioned earlier. Her faith was undeniable. Her faith was in her life, in her teaching, in her work and in the raising of her family. She shared every part of her faith and trust in God with her family.  That trust included the fact that God had control of her life and that death is a part of life.  Her faith directed her Living Will and her medical decisions. Her life was already led by God and she wanted to put her death in God’s hands, too. 

Faith can be incredibly helpful but it can be deeply painful, if misunderstood.  In times of trauma, pain, suffering and critical need, faith can bring about emotional and spiritual distress as it did with the story of the first patient.  At some point in his life, his faith taught him that God punishes people, God gives cancer, and that people (no matter how human) deserve painful suffering and death, with no forgiveness or grace. 

Faith can also be misused.  I have seen patients with traumatic injuries and incurable diseases who struggled with the “why” of it all.  They would ask me questions, “Did I not pray enough?…Did I not go to church enough?”  They wondered if they had a stroke because they didn’t go to church. They wondered if they have this disease because they killed people when they served in the military and this was God’s punishment. I’ve even heard their pastors come to visit and say to the patient or family, “You’ve got to pray harder…You need to have more faith….God needed that precious angel (after the death of a child) and your little girl was the next flower God needed to pick.” Talk about a faith misused.   

As a chaplain, I am asked more often than not, “Why did this happen?”. When I am asked “why,” my one and only response will always be, “I don’t know.” I don’t know why things happen. Cancers happen. Traumas happen. Disease happens. What I do know is suffering is not a punishment of any sort. Suffering and death are a part of life, even for the most faithful. For Christians, I remind them that Jesus suffered, not only on the cross but also in Gethsemane. Jesus called out to God in distress and questioned God’s will. In the garden, he cried out, “If it is your will, take this cup from me”. While on the cross, in his most vulnerable moment, he asked, “Why have you forsaken me?” It is through Jesus’s agony we are reminded that we are not alone in our suffering.

Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 

Jesus reminds me of Proverbs 3:5-6. We’ve got to trust God, even in the midst of all the unanswerable, we’ve got to trust that God will be with us in the vulnerability. God didn’t give him cancer, but who is providing meals in the middle of the treatments?  God didn’t cause the car collision but who is helping with the physical therapy? God didn’t take that little girl but who is holding dad’s hand in the midst of the grief? And as we acknowledge God in all of our ways, whether in joy and happiness or anger and sadness, who is right there, hearing every word, feeling every pain, and holding every tear?  

Every day, I am reminded that faith can be a coping tool, a medicine if you will, that can bring comfort in the midst of the vulnerability. I am grateful to work with medical teams and healthcare organizations that recognize the importance of the holistic care of patients and families. I meet patients and families in their Gethsemane every day. It’s incredibly humbling to walk with them on this journey even when we don’t know how it will end. Whether the end of the hospital stay includes seeing a on this earth or one of complete healing in heaven, it will be a beautiful and comforting sight, for the patient and the family.

I will never take this role for granted. 

Suicide and Faith

Being a chaplain for trauma patients and families is not easy. I meet them in the emergency department and then continue to follow them in the ICU to keep a continuity of care flowing as much as possible.  Trauma is a different beast all together and it takes a certain spirit and heart to work with this community.

Those of us who work in trauma have a unique gift of strength and resilience. Trauma is not for wimps. A former chaplain resident I mentored called me “hardcore”. You see things you never imagined you would ever see. You hear pain that you’ve never experienced in your life. It’s challenging all the time. It’s difficult most of the time. And it’s heartbreaking a lot of the time. It’s deeply humbling to walk along side each patient and family member I meet. I am incredibly grateful to work beside the ED and Trauma Teams as we walk in the trenches together.

There is one particular population that I am quite sensitive to; a population I see all too often – patients who’ve attempted to die by suicide. When I say I see them a lot, I am not exaggerating.  I’ve seen patients as young as 12 to as old as 93. This year alone, i’ve faced a 12 year old child and 78 year old adult and plenty of ages in-between. There are too many. Unfortunately, many accomplish their goal but not without our team trying everything humanly possible to save them. They die while hearing the screams of their family members crying out for answers as their loved ones take their last breaths. There are many things I can’t do and on top of that list is responding their “why” question. I will never be able to answer them. 

The question “why” is more complicated than you think, especially for people of faith.  When a family is dealing with the trauma of their loved one (any kind of trauma), I often hear, “I don’t know how people who don’t know God, get through this.” Their faith allows them to cope and survive through the challenges of trauma. However, faith and suicide have a different relationship. For families of suicide patients, faith is another dimension of struggle and pain.  There is a level of unwarrented shame and misunderstanding. I met a family deeply devoted in their faith, who lost a loved one to suicide. Their faith caused more pain because the older generation in this family could not acknowledge the suicide. “We went to church. We prayed. We were happy. There has to be something else that caused this. We are not going to tell anyone what happened.” The pain and anger within their broken hearts kept them from seeing beyond their faith.

Faith becomes a struggle when the pastor tells the family, “Are you going to believe the doctors or are you going to trust God?” They demand the families to “pray harder…call out to God..repent for your lack of trust…God will save him..you’ve just got to believe harder.”  Those are actual statements I heard from a “pastor”. I cried after that individual poured the salt of shame and guilt into the open wounds of the family. I could see the pain in their faces. They were already grieving the anticipated death of their child. This pastor’s rant made them grieve a loss of their faith, at least what the pastor thought was lost. The patient died that night, after shooting himself through the side of his head with the bullet hitting both hemispheres of the brain. The metal escaped through the other side of the brain but not before causing irreparable damage, a “non-survivable injury”. The only reason I share the specifics of the injury is to help you understand that a patient will NOT come back from this. There will not be the miracle of complete healing. They will die. Even if the body survives, they are already gone. The pastor would not accept that but instead of being the pastor the family needed, he was so much worse. He caused irreparable damage, too. I can only imagine what he said at the funeral service. Why do pastors do that to their flock? How can they inflict so much pain and guilt into the families that trust the pastor with their faith? I will never be able to understand.

There is another level of shame that needs healing. Suicide comes from a deep, dark pain from within the souls of those who are hurting. The pain is so dark that they are willing to do just about anything to stop the pain. It’s a pain so deep they can’t carry it anymore.  The pain is nothing to be ashamed of. This darkness is a cancer, it’s a disease, just like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc..that needs to be treated. It is depression and anxiety. It is loneliness and grief. It is aloneness and a loss of control. God knows it’s real. God gets that. God feels our pain. There is no god i know that would brush away the pain of one of his children. God would not shame or sentence their child to hell. No earthly parent should feel that way either.  

There is nothing shameful in regards to suicide. Painful, yes. Shameful, no. A patient who shot himself in the chest, removed his oxygen mask and cried out to me, “Just let me die.” The pain in his voice was heartbreaking and painstakingly real. I spoke with his sister who would not accept that this was a suicide attempt. She told the family they were not allowed to share what really happened. She was ashamed of it; likely because of the stigma she grew up with as well as some struggle with her faith.  I talked with her about that shame and explained what I shared above. She listened but did not verbally respond. I could tell she was thinking. A couple of months after her brother’s death, she returned to the hospital. She thanked me for explaining the pain that he brother felt. I suspect she knew the pain was there all along. Our conversation helped to free her brother and ultimately, herself, from the shame of depression, pain and suicide. She was able to learn more about her brother’s tragedy and pain and help others understand it, too.  

Suicide is real. Depression and anxiety are real. Loneliness is real. Pain is real. People struggle every single day with the darkness that has taken control of their lives. The one way they can gain back any control is to do the only thing that will take away all the pain. I get it. I get it more than you can imagine.  If you feel that pain, please reach out. Call the Suicide hotline, meet with your doctor. Request a counselor. If your pastor is a safe person to talk to, meet with him or her. find someone to help carry the yoke with you. Don’t be ashamed.

Life is a continuous struggle for someone in immense pain. Faith should never be a conduit of that darkness.  Faith should be the one constant place where you can find a glimpse of light that will guide you through the wilderness and the valley, where you can fight to live another day.