One day when I was first ordained, I was talking with Mary Mills, a very devoted nurse. I was wondering how she was able to spend so many hours of her adult life working with children who were terribly ill. Mary was able to maintain for herself a very positive and upbeat mentality despite being surrounded by such suffering and pain of little ones.
Mary shared with me that when she was only ten years old her mother got very sick and had to be hospitalized for many months before she finally died.
Every Saturday and Sunday and even during the week for many long hours she sat down the hall from her mother’s hospital room at the nurses’ station.
As a ten-year old girl Mary told me that she witnessed the care, the tenderness and the love that the nurses had for her mother and for all the sick who were confined to the hospital. A God Witness
Mary said that what she saw became a part of her. Day in and day out as a young girl she saw illness and especially life itself in a whole different light.
Mary Mills became BETTER and not BITTER because of what she witnessed through the young eyes of her faith. This led Mary to go into nursing and to spend the rest of her life caring for children with the worst of illnesses.
As a newly ordained priest of twenty-five, I learned from Mary Mills that when I see my world with the eyes of a deep faith, I can become BETTER and not BITTER. A God Nod
Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
