I had read this many times before, but never had I read it with such revelation:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love it profits me nothing.”
– 1 Cor 13:1-3
It made me rethink our assumption that much of what we do on a daily basis is good, when in fact, on deeper inspection, it could be hollow and futile.
It made me think about our work in hospitals for our patients, and to what end we treat them for. Every day, senior doctors rush around from clinics to their subsidized patient wards to their private-paying patients to lectures and meetings, while junior doctors chase the trail of their royal trains of knowledge, lapping up the many orders to be carried out for each patient.
Bloods to draw: full blood count, anemia panel, thyroid function test, C-reactive protein. Scans to do: MRI of the neck. Procedure to send for: oesophago-duodenoscopy. Speak to family to update. Break bad news to patient. Arrange for medical social worker to help with financial issues. Write a referral letter to the renal team. Trace previous results. Get occupational and physio therapists involved. Gain patient’s consent.
All this, for only one patient during a single morning ward round. Multiply that work by several times and you have the task list for a junior doctor each day. The senior doctor runs around far less for sure, but wracks his brains surely, ordering a myriad of tests for the many different possibilities of underlying causes for the disease at hand, and prescribing an endlessly long list of medications.
We toil daily, we slog on weekends, we put our hands to the plough. We assume our efforts are for good purpose.
But are they really?
At church today, as we delved into this passage, Mdm Y came into my mind. She was the lady whom everyone avoided, because of her bad temper, bad smell and exfoliating skin all over her body. Having borne 4 children out of wedlock, she was the shame of all her relatives and had been abandoned by all her children. Looking after her was not easy, for all the nurses and allied health professionals would tell me how uncooperative and difficult she would be. She had a list of more than ten different medical issues to manage: an autoimmune skin disease, blood issues, infections, psychiatric problems… and it took a gargantuan amount of effort simply to coordinate her care.
Yet, day in day out, she would whine and complain, groan and bemoan our “suboptimal” care for her, cursing the nurses and giving us the cold shoulder.
I looked at her raw skin exuding pus all over her face, limbs and trunk, and my heart broke as she said, “I’m so old. I should die by now. Look at me, I’m so ugly. I used to have beautiful skin.”
Such words could only come from God.
Her countenance changed completely the next day. As we built a friendship, she, knowing that I believe in God, started to shout in mandarin when she saw me from afar, “DAO GAO, DAO GAO!”
“Pray! Pray! Pray for me like you did yesterday, oh, I’m so happy today!! “
I phoned a colleague whom I knew works as a music therapist in various hospitals as a music therapist playing the guitar for dying patients in palliative care.
“M, would you mind coming down to minister to my patient? She’s not dying, but I really think she would appreciate you going down to see her.”
All she needed was love, a kind word, someone to ask her what she enjoyed eating usually and buying it for her as a treat.
It made me stop to wonder, and compare the good that our one-million-and-one investigations and clinical management had done for Mdm Y, compared to a few extra minutes of showing how much we care for her, not just physically, but as a person holistically.
It reminded me of the many patients from villages that the missionary doctor was seeing in Mozambique, Africa, and how he used to tell me, that the medications were only a temporary fix, but the true underlying problems were often social ones, and the true salve for many of these patients was often love. Kind words of hope, prayer, consistent encouragement.
It was then that I saw, how we can be “clanging cymbals”( telling Mdm Y not to do this or that because it is bad for her), how we can “understand all mysteries and all knowledge” behind the myriad of diseases she was plagued with, how we can “give our bodies to be burned” by staying back late to write yet another referral letter for her to get a specialist opinion for her treatment… and yet not have love at all.
In the many weeks that she had been in hospital, who had stopped to show her love. Had it not been for God to shake me out of my unwillingness, I would have been content just getting things done for her during her hospital admission.
In the same vein, do you ever wonder if you show enough love too? Is it not possible to hurt another under the guise of “tough love”, making excuses that we know what is for another’s own good? It made me see: We can leave money in the coin boxes of buskers, we can make the occasional donation to the kidney foundation, we can even do regular spring cleaning in our homes to give away items to the Salvation Army…
… We could all these things… But if we have not love, if we have not shown love through a kind word, a gentle touch, a genuine smile… then… we are nothing.
Mdm Y stretched me, still stretches me daily. She challenges me to remember what love really is.
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” -1 Cor 13:4-7
Her whining grates my patience, provokes rudeness and exasperation in me, makes me want to give up at times. But today I was reminded what love is- patience, kindness… with an element of endurance. It is not just running around doing things for another person; it is not just two parents making sacrifices to provide material comfort; it is not just “doing good” to another based on what one person thinks is good, but really, it is extending kindness and friendship to another fellow human being, overcoming the obstacles in between.
Mdm Y changed from a menacing, angry old woman into a kindly lady within a day.
“YESU DUI WO ZHEN HAO.”
“God is so good to me, doctor.”
hey waijia! (:
thanks for posting. really. (:
i'm actually working as a staff nurse and because of the discipline i'm in, it gets tough at times.
but i'm learning daily that there's no way i can bring myself to work with a smile, and face the patients if I don't allow God to work through. (:
your post reminds me of Ginny Owen's song… "if i have not love, i'm nothing,"
keep shining. hospitals need more doctors like you… who see patients as more than just a bed number or a disease.
(:
in His love,
rachel