I struggle with suffering.

Mr. Jonathan Dick, OSFS at Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Hospital

What I learned this summer is that I struggle with the suffering of others much more than I do with my own. This summer, I went down South in order to intern as a hospital chaplain at Atrium Wake Forest Baptist Hospital in Winston Salem, North Carolina. There I learned something important about ministry while in the hospital: I dislike like suffering because I cannot fix suffering. I don’t know how many patients I saw in the hospital over those ten weeks, but being in a hospital, it is easy to conclude that almost no one that I met there was in a good space. Pain and suffering, and sometimes death were the typical realities of people’s lives that I was called to enter into as a chaplain. In each room, I was called to care for and support people in some of the worst moments of their lives. Initially, when I first got on the unit, I saw their pain and I wanted to fix it. Yet, there was nothing I could do and that made me feel like a bad chaplain.

I would say to myself: Aren’t I supposed to make this better for them? I wanted to take away some of their pain. I wanted to alleviate their suffering. But I couldn’t. I am not a doctor, I am not a nurse. I am not God. I was called to provide care for these patients, but all I can do is be with them. I sat with parents with pregnancy complications, anxious that they might lose their child. I sat with a woman for an hour who struggled as she watched her father suffer as he approached death. I met a woman who survived being shot multiple times and was in true pain, but somehow full of peace. In all of these encounters, I had to wrestle with the fact that I couldn’t fix their suffering. It is a human tendency to want to provide a solution or offer something to sustain someone during their hospital stay.

I wanted to satiate the patient’s hunger to be pain-free. I wanted to quench their thirst for healing. I wanted to eradicate their anxiety, fear, and worry. I wanted to fix their suffering. But as I stated before, I realized very quickly I cannot fix suffering.

At one point this summer, I had to have a come-to-Jesus moment with, well… you know who. In prayer, I imagined Jesus was looking at me going, “Jonathan, you cannot fix their suffering. Stop trying to be the solution. Stop trying to be their Savior. I am their Savior. I am the solution. I am the fix. All I need you to do is show up and give your heart to them.”

God is the God of the Human Heart. He is the fix. He wants to give of Himself in order to sustain us and carry us through difficult moments. What I was reminded of this summer was that God has more to offer those who are suffering than I ever could. This doesn’t mean He always takes away the pain. Instead, what He gives us Himself. God gives us the gift of being present to us. The God who made the sun, the stars, black holes, and the planets comes and dwells with us and within us in the midst of our suffering and pain. And He is present to us so that He can transform the pain and the suffering, the brokenness and the hurt, and make it something new.

As a chaplain, I learned that all I need to do is show up and give my whole heart to my patients. I cannot fix the suffering that I see, but if I show up as Christ has shown up for me time and time again, I imitate the God of the human heart. When we give of our hearts, that is where the true change or fix occurs. It is not that we make anything better, but when we show up with our whole heart, we silently say to the other person, “Here is my heart and you have a place within it. I am here for you”. I give you my heart, my presence, myself. I cannot give you anything more. What I learned this summer is that as hard as it is to do that, it is not only enough, but it is truly the best fix you can offer someone. By offering our hearts to others, we imitate the God who is Love, the God of the human heart, who gives His heart to us saying, “Here is My heart and you have a place within it. I am here for you. Let me give you new life.”

We don’t have to fix everything. Sometimes, the greatest gift we can give is our presence, our time, and our love. It is simply showing up and giving of ourselves that is the best fix. As Christ gives us His presence when we receive the Eucharist, may we live what we receive and imitate the One who shows up for us, give us His heart, and says: “I am here for you.”

May God be praised!