Transforming Care: A Christian Vision of Nursing Practice by Mary Molewyk Doornbos;Ruth Groenhout;Kendra G. Hotz Page A

in the many ways in which we fall short of living a life that brings glory to
God and contributes to the well-being of those we are responsible for. We need to learn to see the workings of this self-deception and self-deification
in our own lives, as we can so often see it in the lives of others.

    The awareness of our sinfulness forms one part of the "shadow side"
of the nurse's religious consciousness. But another important dimension is
rooted in the simple fact of our finitude. Even if Janet recognizes that human life comes to an end, her recognition does not cancel out Ann's misery, because the suffering itself is not a result of our self-deception. It is
real. The Gospel accounts of Jesus' life give ample evidence that he understood the reality and full range of human suffering as he took on human
form and appearance for the sake of our salvation. Jesus, the Messiah, was
betrayed, mocked, taunted, spat upon, flogged, and nailed to the cross,
where he endured a slow and tortuous death. Jesus' death likely entailed
some of the same horrible elements of physical suffering that nurses often
see in their dying clients - exhaustion, searing pain, gasping for breath.
Christ's experience with suffering validates the reality of human suffering
in general and offers the assurance that our particular suffering is not foreign to him. Ann suffers as her body is failing, and Janet suffers as she
struggles with a sense of futility that her care cannot reverse Ann's deterioration and pain. Ann is dying, and therefore she needs a different kind of
care than she would if she were suffering from a reversible condition. Even
if Janet acknowledges this fact and comes to enjoy the work of palliative
care as a way of consenting to human finitude, she will still, no doubt, be
confounded by the reality of suffering.
    A careful examination of the structure of creation reveals that not all
of God's purposes are to do with us, and not all of them conform to our
immediate good, or at least to our perception of it (Gustafson i98i, 202). It
is far easier for the zebra to consent to the divine ordering as it munches on
the grasses of the savannah than to do so in the mouth of the lion. And we
should expect that, even as the zebra struggles against the lion's jaw, so
Janet will protest the raw evil that decimates Ann's body and unravels her
mind. But we prefer to imagine that there is never a time in the proper ordering of things when we belong in the lion's mouth, or its equivalent in
human experience. This happens in part because we are deceived about
our place in the world, deceived into believing that we are the ultimate reason for its existence and that the rest of creation derives its meaning and
purpose from its relationship to humanity. But there is more to it than
that. We can certainly recognize that there is something wrong with asking
the zebra to take delight in being devoured by the lion even if it is part of how God has ordered the world. We expect the zebra to put up a fight.
Likewise, an ethic of consent could be nothing but perverse if it called for
human beings to submit gleefully to the process of degradation that ultimately ends in our deaths.

    So what should our response to this suffering be? Should we assume
the cowering posture of a slave who hopes the master will be merciful?
Should we bargain our way toward a better life, promising to be good in
hopes of reprieve? Should we lie to ourselves and say that God never gives
us more than we can handle? Or that suffering is good because it gives us a
chance to develop character? Or that we would not call it suffering if we
could see the big picture? The Bible, especially in the Psalms and Lamentations, proposes a different response: lament. The book of Lamentations
was written during a time when the Babylonian army had besieged and
then destroyed the city of Jerusalem. Thousands had been killed. Thousands more were starving. Here is part of what