We offer this poignant reflection to honor the nurses who serve our hospitals, health clinics, nursing homes and hospices, as well as the visiting nurses who provide services that allow the sick and the elderly to remain in their homes. We honor these selfless women and men who are instruments of the Lord’s healing power and compassion on a daily basis in ways we most times do not recognize until we are in need of their skills, experience and commitment.
The Nurse
The world grows better year by year
Because some nurse in her little sphere
Puts on her apron and grins and sings
And keeps on doing the same old things
Taking the temperatures, giving the pills
To remedy mankind’s numberless ills
Feeding the baby, answering the bells
Being polite with a heart that rebels
Longing for home and all the while
Wearing the same old professional smile;
Blessing the newborn babe’s first breath;
Closing the eyes that are still in death
Taking the blame for the doctors mistakes
O dear! What a lot of patience it takes!
Going off duty at 7:00 o’clock
Tired, discouraged, and ready to drop
But called back on special at 7:15
With woe in her heart ~ it must not be seen.
Morning and evening, and noon and night
Just doing it over and hoping it’s right
As she lays down her cap and crosses the bar
O Lord will you give her just one little star
To wear in her crown with her uniform new
In that city above where that head nurse is You?
From the Whidden Hospital School of Nursing Yearbook - 1948