To the nurses.  Women (and men) who can rock a twelve hour shift with a full bladder while walking miles a day on an empty stomach.  Calm souls who deal with a full plate of alarms, charts, computer screens, patients, bodily fluids and a constant feeling of living on the edge of life, and death, while hoping they get enough done in the day so they don’t have to wonder, as the shift finally comes to a close, if they did enough for the ones that needed it the most.  K tips her cap to you as she reveals that sometimes, the control you learn to cling to, can devastate a part of life you’ll really never get control of.  

This is the end.  

My true best friend…  The end.  

An odd concoction of sweat, stress, death, life, victories, failures, and wondering if she’d done enough permeated the air, and her uniform, as she closed up shop and headed out for the night.  

Her mind hadn’t been, and never really was these days where it should be, as she dealt with the reality that was about to meet her while pulling slowly into the driveway and opening the garage door.

It was quiet now.  So quiet.  And not the peaceful kind that you sit and rest in while sipping your coffee or tea and just being who you are, where you are. 

It was the biting kind.  The quiet that rips open your soul and exposes thoughts, feelings, and depths you didn’t even know you had while it brings anything but peace, and everything K never wants to feel again.    

But she will.  

Busy, she had to keep busy.  The less she thought about it, the busier she was. The less she had to worry, and cry, while she screamed at God in anger and pleaded with Him in defeat, the better.  

She was forced to watch from the sidelines while her life and all she knew spun utterly and totally out of control.  

Control. 

Something she always had.  As Chief Nursing Officer all the pressure and responsibility landed squarely on her.  So many nurses, so much to cover, so much to control, schedule, align and supervise.  And if something didn’t go right, even if it was someone else’s mistake, it was always on K.  

There are so many different types of work.  Place a part in a car and move down the assembly line.   Teaching, leading, typing and staring at a computer screen all day.  And then there’s work that combines all of that and more as you teach, lead, type, print, assemble, fix, and heal.  And in the end, you’re left wondering if the emotional toll and time away it takes is really worth the money or the portion of mental health you’ll never get back.  

Life, death, but mostly death.  The people that live aren’t the ones that stick with her.  It’s the ones she couldn’t save.  The ones she grew attached to whose room was just empty one day when she came on shift, and it wasn’t because they had gotten better and went home.  The families that pull, need, and plead with her to help, to fix it.  Make it better K.  But she can’t.  She can only make them comfortable, if that.  Those are the ones scarred into her heart.  

And as she transferred from a critical care nurse to the Chief nursing officer, all while working as a nurse practitioner at two separate practices, life flew by. Not only hers, but his as well.    Work, work, work, a bit of family time, then back to the jobs.

Her husband owned his own business after leaving the fire department, and was just as busy, as he threw their lives into a tailspin that would force her to switch roles.  Instead of caring for others as they slowly faded away, she’d be caring for him.  Much too soon.  As he faded. 

Away.

This wasn’t how life was supposed to go.  

Hey K!

Nursing, she admits, she loved it.  Critical care, nurse practitioner, and even with the stress and demands of calling herself Chief, looking back, she wouldn’t trade it for much.  

But maybe, maybe, she’d trade it for just one more day.  One more hour.  With him.  But she had tried that already.  She offered it.  And God just threw it back in her face.  

Hey K!

She begged, borrowed, and stole.  Every emotion, every deal, every option.  She bartered with God like a seasoned negotiator.  On her knees, in her car, tears streaming down her face.  One more year, one more month.  I’ll do whatever you want.  Whatever you need.  It’s not supposed to be this way!  This isn’t right!  You can’t do this!

I worked so hard for YOU!

Hey K!

She had expectations for life.  For her life.  For their life.  

But in the end, as we’ve touched on here, here, and here, no matter our work, no matter our time, no matter what we think should happen, God only really wants one thing.  And everything else K can do, work for, work toward, love, get involved in, and even pursue, looks completely different if God’s will isn’t at the center.  If He isn’t in control.  

So many  years she had done what He wanted, what He had asked.  Her mother took her family to church every Sunday. Sunday school, bible school, church camp and catechism. She knew all about God.  She can’t even think of a time when she wasn’t surrounded by practice, learning and knowledge of the Divine.  She was married in the same church that she was baptized and confirmed in.  It’s the same church she still attends today. 

She thought God was front, center, and surrounding all and who she was.  

As a nurse she sat and prayed with patients, pouring herself out to the hurting, the poor of health and spirit, even traveling overseas numerous times on medical missions to poor and broken countries.  She worked hard, for God.  She did it all, for Him.  Or so she thought.   

But K knew, as she reflected, that to a point, much of what she did was for K.  It brought purpose.  She felt needed, wanted, worth it.  She felt like the harder she worked for others, the more she could control how her life would go.  She would do X, and God would do Y, and life would work out just like it should.  She would find a happy and safe existence as she aged healthy, old and died peacefully beside her husband in her sleep, one day.  And then she would find her reward.  

In the end, God took all her work, all her offering, everything she thought she had built up and stored in the storehouses of heaven where moths and rust would not destroy, and threw it back in her face.  He said, no, this isn’t good enough. This isn’t what I want.  At least that’s what it felt like.   And sometimes, these days, even after the years pass, it’s still what it feels like.  

I want more.  

It was too much.  God couldn’t ask that.  He didn’t have the right.  This wasn’t how life was supposed to go.  

I want more.  

What more could you want?  K had given and done so much. As her husband’s last days came to a close and it finally sunk in that no amount of dealing or pleading or offerings to the Creator was going to change anything, she heard Him say it again.  

K, I want more.  I want you. 

And slowly, eventually, it seeps in.  The realization. Through her veins, through her heart, and into her mind.  

It’s mostly been about her.  The work, the accomplishment, the pace of life, even the missions.  And even though it helped others, it was about how it helped her.  

Finally, the music stops, the record scratches to it’s end.  

Brain tumor.  Inoperable. Will die an early death, and it will be painful.  

They had just gotten back from the trip of a lifetime.  Time together, closer than ever.  Celebrating their lives, getting to this point.  They were coasting.   

Inoperable.  This will hurt.  You’ll lose him soon.  There’s nothing we can do but make him feel comfortable.  

This is the end.  

“As a critical care nurse, I learned that being “in control” was important to patient outcomes. The medications, the tubes, the ventilators, the cardiac rhythms, all depend on control, and I became quite the control freak.”

“Most of my adult life I operated on the assumption that even though I said God was in control, I thought I still controlled much of the outcomes in my life.”

“As I heard the words, brain tumor, Any sense of control of anything was gone.”

K, I want you. 

“Watching my best friend, love of my life, and father of our two sons decline and die was incredibly painful; it also was humbling.  The saying goes that we are never closer to God than when we are on our knees. Lying on the floor sobbing, many times. It was in those moments that I finally understood that I control very little. That God does have His plan, and it may not be my plan.”

She finally gave up.  

She never felt like a fake, or a fraud, she just never knew that her control was never what God wants, no matter the amount of work she puts in for Him.  So she left it all behind.  Control, expectations, assumptions.  K gave them up.  All of them.    She couldn’t have gone on otherwise.  

“I learned it isn’t about what I want, but learning to listen to what God wants…. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

“I am reminded daily that it’s God’s will and not mine that brings peace. I’ve been given the gift of true empathy and compassion for those I meet who also are grieving. God has shown me that even in the darkest times, He provides the light of hope. I just need to give up trying to control the intensity of the light and let it reflect off of me.”

Would she trade it.  If Christ gave her the option today?  Her husband retained for the remainder of their lives, whatever that may be, instead of the relationship she has now with God. Deep, overflowing, totally reliant and focused on Him.  Rest in His leadership.

No.  

K is now Karin.  Full, filled, while she still wrestles with pain and loss.  All she can do is follow.  Where He leads.  What He wants.  His heart beating deeply in her chest.  A connection that she would have never had until she gave everything up to Him.  

She credits Trinity Luthern Church in Ashland with being a place full of life, community, and healing.  

She still falls to her knees at times, in days that she remembers his kiss, his presence, his comfort and love.  But as much as it pains her to admit, it was nothing compared to the true and full presence of God now.  

And it was never meant to be.  

She dwells deeply now. So deeply, mostly because she didn’t have a choice.  The pain, the depth, they brought her to her knees.  It was the only place she was ready, really ready, to take an outstretched hand as He told her, “Now, come with me.  Let me lead. Let me give you, life…”  

This is the end.  The end of K.  And the start of Karin.   

Lean not on your own understanding.  Seek His will in all you do and He will show you which path to take.  Proverbs 3:5-6

In memory of Fred S. 4/17/53 – 9/22/16

Connect with the story?  Shoot Karin a comment.    Let her know you appreciate her sharing.  Read the book? Have a story? Get a hold me HERE or at Chad.campese@gmail.com to share your thoughts.  Find hope, purpose, and direction in removing the mask many of us force ourselves to wear as we try to live our lives one day at a time, together.

Chad Campese is a father, husband, police officer, blogger, and author of the book Confession of a Christian Fraud.  He holds a BA in Christian Counseling and psychology, is heavily involved in peer support and recovery when it comes to first responders, and is an expert in living his life and faith as a fraud. These days he simply relies on the leading of the Spirit as he tries to slowly and purposefully take life one day at a time.