Gifts of Grace

Desktop Blooms
In clinical each week, we are assigned to a patient whom we work with for one or two days. On our patients from the last week of January, we had one week to complete a detailed nursing care plan. Nursing care plans consist of:
· A report on the pathophysiology of the condition affecting the patient,
· A bibliography,
· A complete head to toe physical assessment,
· Detailed information about the medications used,
· Detailed information about the diagnostic tests and labs done,
· 12 nursing diagnoses, and
· 4 nursing diagnoses written up with short and long term patient goals, intervention strategies and evaluations of effectiveness.
This care plan was due Thursday morning. I worked all week on it. On Wednesday night, I taught a portion of my childbirth class curriculum for a Human Growth and Development class at the college. It was hard to give up the 3 hours that I could have worked on my care plan to teach, but I put it in God’s hands to help me complete the work. I literally was up all night working on it on Wednesday. By 5:30 a.m. Thursday, I realized I couldn’t do anything else but that I had to get ready to go to clinical and that I had no choice but to print it out and turn it in, incomplete, for better or worse.

Saturday evening, the instructor called and wanted to know where the rest of it was. I explained to her that I just hadn’t been able to get it done. She asked if I knew how much it was going to hurt my grade and with what was probably a sob in my voice, I said, yes, that I did know. She was silent a moment and then said, could you get the rest of it to me by 6:00 p.m. tomorrow? I had it turned in by 2:00 p.m. The amount of time it took me to finish? Almost exactly 3 hours. God is gracious.

One of my joys is forcing hyacinths and paperwhites to bloom indoors on cold winter days. Back in October, I filled one vegetable bin of the refrigerator with hyacinth bulbs in forcing glasses. By December, the glasses were filled with pristine white roots but the tops of the bulbs showed no growth yet. By the end of January, the papery tunics form a ruffled collar around the pale yellow cones of leaves that have pushed up an inch or two. In order to provide a steady progression of blooms over the next month, every few days I bring another hyacinth out from the refrigerator and put it on my desk where I can watch it change and grow daily. Leaves turn from pasty yellow to chartreuse to deep green. Sculptural flower stalks rise, released from the protective cocoon of leaves. Each waxy bud tips outward until it springs open, spilling fragrance into the room.

Paperwhites are much easier. I simply nest the bulbs in a glass container filled with fine black gravel, add water and wait. First the white roots snake down through the gravel in every changing patterns and then green shoots begin to telescope skyward from the rich papery brown tunics. Paperwhites grow so quickly, that the growth is nearly visible to sight. When the leaves are about three inches high, the blossom sheaths begin to rise between the leaves, swelling each day. The sheath turns translucent and embryo buds can be seen within, growing, changing day by day. Now the bud sheaths are so pregnant with blossom that I anticipate being able to watch them split open any moment into bloom. Then, while occupied with something else, I hear a quiet snapping pop and look over to see infant blossoms bursting forth. What a miracle of life to be witness to.

So while my family and friends are taking February visits to places like the Cayman Islands, Aruba, Florida, Paris and Costa Rica and another is enjoying blossoming cherry trees in the San Francisco area, I have my own little Eden, my own bit of spring growing on my desktop. Such grace God gives us, to bring such joys into our lives.

Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all. 2 Thessalonians 3:16