GOD’S INSTRUCTION MANUAL
You know it!!! During nursing school, if you heard it once, you heard it a thousand times, FIRST comes assessment. Which means you will be asking yourself a plethora of questions in order to define your patient’s needs, and formulate a care plan. From every angle possible, you are seeking information which will not only help your inquisitive mind, but, the answers to your questions will provide a safety net of what to expect during the care of your patient.
Take for instance, the breast cancer survivor who comes to you fresh out of surgery with something you have never seen before… tubes coming out of their chest, under the bandaging, and a small reservoir which looks kind of like a hand grenade. What in the world is this? You never saw this in nursing school, and, your patient is a new breast cancer surgery survivor who will be looking to you for education on these little bulb-like containers. You can soon be found scouring the unit for the first available computer so you can research this unknown device.
Maybe you are that nurse of the patient who was moved to your step down unit from the ICU. While you recognize the PCA pump, what you don’t recognize is the contraption which provides high flow oxygen with a peculiar reservoir on the IV pole, and, the moustache like cannula on your patient’s nose. As the CNA helps tuck in your patient to their new room, you are out in the hallway collaborating with the respiratory therapist for some quick education on the management of this new oxygen delivery system.
You are familiar with the patient education portal. This portal is where we go to print out information pertinent to the discharge planning of our patients in order to give them a shot at functioning independently once they arrive home. The reason we do the research and print out these valuable sheets of golden nuggets is to provide someone who did not have a foreknowledge of what they will be experiencing as their new normal. It’s like a tool which will keep them from coming back through the emergency room based on something they did not know to expect.
Just like the computer we use to research unknown devices, the respiratory therapist who acts as our quick tutor, and the patient education portal we access to provide much needed education to our patients is the Word of God to those of us who believe. Psalm 119:11 says “I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” And, Psalm 119:105 tells us “thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”
The goodness of God includes the fact that He does not leave us without instructions or help. He actually has written our instruction manual which is described as “active and living, sharper than a two-edged sword” Hebrews 4:12. Not only does God call us by his grace to believe in His son, Jesus, but, He has given us his word as our guide. In His love and goodness to his children, God has given us the ultimate answer for every question imaginable. It’s up to us to not ask the questions of life, but, to pick up His Word and read the answers.
