Karen Meyers has been in the medical profession in one form or another for most of her professional career. She began as a medical transcriptionist, but in her early forties, she decided to return to school to become a nurse. When thinking about her role at work she shares, “you see a lot, obviously. People are at their most vulnerable. They’re not always happy. They’re not feeling good. And you see that. I would have circumstances or patients where I would leave there and be crying. I would be sad. I would be depressed for them.”
When considering how her faith has impacted her work, Karen says: “I would carry things home with me, and not that I shouldn’t have, but that’s when I really turned to God. What can I do different here to help these people? I think just reaching into my faith was important. You have to come home. You have to be a mom. You can’t always carry these things with you. And not that I shouldn’t care, and I did, but I felt like I needed to lean on God a bit more at those times.”
Karen remembers one particular moment where God met her in that prayer for help. She says, “we had a patient who had been in the ER, and he had come down to the endoscopy department. Just reading through his history, I saw that he had been in a very bad car accident and had been in long term situation. His wife was sitting in some chairs waiting while we did the procedure. She was visibly struggling, and I could see that. Luckily I had a little time, so I went over to sit with her, and hand her a box of Kleenex. As I talked with her, you know, I cried with her.”
She continues: “I was able to say, ‘could I take a minute to pray with you?’ It wasn’t a big long drawn out prayer. I just said a little prayer with her. She was receptive to that. I can’t imagine how she felt. It was just one of those times where you think, gosh, how blessed am I that I’m not in that situation. And how blessed that I could sit with her and talk to her.”
In the Psalms, God says that He is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Karen embodies the spirit of that scripture with her compassion and willingness to be near to those who are experiencing deep distress. She is an example for all of us.
