If Christians believe that Jesus died to save us from our sins and bring us eternal life, why then have I encountered so many afraid of death? Working critical care meant more often than not, I would be faced with life or death situations. The one thing I would always hear constantly is how Jesus would work a miracle and their family member would walk right out of the hospital. There were many times that this miracle would occur and we were transferring patients out to less critical units. A few times, the patient would walk in several months later and say thank you. However, there were those moments this was not possible.
Watching families
grieving was heart-wrenching. No matter
how professional one can be, you could not put away the human aspects of
empathy and sympathy. There were many
times that I would have to hide in the supply closet so I don't show the family
my tears. What I grieved aside from the
loss of the families is the moments when they could not let go. It was more difficult to watch my patients'
prolonged suffering because of their loved ones' inability to consider a world
without them. There was a time a patient
had coded more than once and one of their family members said "If God
wants to, He'll take him." My
coworker responded, "God did take him.
We brought him back."
Her response stuck
with me. Yes, God gave us the knowledge,
the intelligence, the tools. But there
is a fine line between saving someone's life and playing God's hand. What is more, there were times that the
prolongation of life was against the wishes of the patient. I saw children of patients beg their parents
to reverse the "Do no resuscitate" status, even when you could see
the patient was ready to let go. They
did not want to suffer anymore. They did
not want to feel pain anymore. They were
ready to let go. They were ready to go
home.
Too often I watched
as my patients organs began to fail.
They could not breathe on their own, completely dependent on the
ventilators. Their body could not handle
the amount of medications and fluids that their bodies began to swell,
sometimes leaking the fluid from their pores instead. In order to keep their blood pressure up so
there is enough flow to the brain, we needed to give them medications that
would cause their blood vessels to constrict; from this their fingertips and
toe tips would turn blue because of decreased circulation. You began to see their heart rate slowing
down. Once they coded we would work on
them, sometimes for two to three hours, doing chest compressions, risking trauma to
their ribs and sternum, giving them more medications, more toxins, more fluids. Despite the minutes and hours we labored, the interventions we did, our efforts seemed futile.
Yet the families
would still want us to keep going; the families that would gather around and
pray for a miracle. The families that
would proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
There was a song and now a book called Everybody
Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die. How could we proclaim God's saving grace, the
eternal life we all look for, but when we're faced with that moment, we deny
God what we have all worked our lives to achieve: eternal rest with Him? By
continuing the life support, by continuing the medications, by continuing the
invasive procedures, we are taking that decision away from God. We are playing
God’s hands. They seem to forget that “what is impossible for human beings is
possible for God.” (Luke 18:27) It does not matter how many breaths we
give them. It does not matter how many heart beats we give them. It doesn’t not
matter what we put into their bodies. Because if God wills it, that is what
will come to pass. All we have to do is have faith that God will work his
miracle. Whether it be here on Earth or in Heaven, “Your will be done.”
(Matthew 6:9)
For those who are
faithful to God, death is the ultimate miracle.
For God so loved the world that He gave
his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might
have eternal life. For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved
through Him. (John 3: 16). Jesus gave himself as ransom for all (1 Timothy
1:6).
Heaven is defined as
"the ultimate end and fulfillment of the deepest human longings, the state
of supreme, definitive happiness." (CCC 1024). Why would we want to continue our family
members' suffering on earth and deny them this happiness that God has
promised? In the Gospel of John, Jesus
Himself said, "If I tell you about earthly
things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you about
heavenly things?" (John 3:12).
He points out the lack of faith
Nicodemus had. He told him "What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is
born of the spirit is spirit."
Holding on to the bodies of our
loved ones, we are born of the flesh, giving in to our earthly desires and not
allowing the spirit of our loved ones to reach their ultimate destiny.
However, it is okay to
grieve. Jesus Himself wept and grieved
for Lazarus (John 11:35). Ultimate
fulfillment for our loved ones in Heaven does not take away the loss we feel. It does not diminish our pain having to
endure without them. One thing we can
all hold on to is that one day, we, too will be united in Heaven with all of
the faithful departed.
Angelica Delallana, MSN, RN