"What…me, a Christian Science nurse?"

In the year 2010 I came to St. Louis a broken man. I had no money, no job and was living in my sister’s unfinished basement. I survived by working as a handy man and doing odd jobs. One of those odd jobs took me to Tender Care at Home, a Christian Science assisted living facility in a five-bedroom house. I had been around Christian Science nursing before as I was the maintenance man at The Leaves, a Christian Science nursing facility in Dallas, and at the Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association in Boston. While working at Tender Care, for some reason I kept saying to myself, “I don’t want to be a nurse, I don’t want to be a nurse.” God had other plans. I found myself interviewing for a part-time beginning Christian Science nurse position. I still did handy man work which led me to Peace Haven Association. I was hired on a part-time basis to do some remodeling. Again, I kept saying to myself, “I don’t want to be a nurse, I don’t want to be a nurse.” 

 

I finally got smart and started working with a Christian Science practitioner about full-time employment. He gave me an assignment.  He said to study all the references in Mrs. Eddy’s writings on the Christ. There are a lot of references on the Christ in Mrs. Eddy’s writings. Well, I was doing my due diligence and after a couple of weeks I ran across this passage in Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (19:12) which reads:

“Meekness is the armor of a Christian, his shield and buckler. He entertains angels who listens to the lispings of repentance seen in a tear—happier than the conqueror of a world. To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: ‘Come unto me.’ O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life’s troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm.” 

 

At that moment I knew I needed to cultivate humility. At that moment I knew I needed to become a Christian Science nurse. The next day I contacted Peace Haven’s Director of Christian Science Nursing and set up an interview. I was accepted.

The road has not always been easy. There have been tremendous triumphs and times of deep soul searching. As I am apt to say to people, “Christian Science nursing: it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”