glimpse

Yesterday I started talking to one of my patients.

He’s LDS and our past conversations led him to understand that I was LDS as well. I tend not to give a lot of personal information about myself to my patients. You never know, you know? But he learned this and we had a connection.

He had a rough day. But I’ll be darned if he didn’t smile genuinely every time I walked into the room.

We were talking when I gave him his pills just before dinner. I had only 45 more minutes of working and I just wanted to go home. I wanted to leave the room quickly and just get things done. But I knew that I was his favorite nurse and so I stayed in the room to talk to him.

He told me how much he appreciated me. And explained how I light up the room when I walk in.

I don’t know how to respond to such amazing compliments as that. So I just deflected and told him how much I appreciated his words and his positive attitude. It really is a pleasure to have patients like him.

He stated, “I’m just trying to live how the Savior taught and would have us live.”

He said "us." It didn't mean "members of the church." It meant him and me.

I got caught off guard. He put me in a category with himself. I thought about how strong he must be. To go through all that he’s gone through: Divorce, remarrying, putting his wife in a nursing home, moving all over the country, living with diseases, and having a 5 bypass surgery. And yet every other thing he says glorifies God and all of his blessings. And he put me in a category with himself.

I’ve been in a place lately where I feel like I’m not doing anything right. And it was as if he opened up the spiritual door that I have closed when he verbalized his motto in life. When he invited the Savior and his teachings into our conversation.

Again, he said that I have a light and a spirit about me. He said righteous people light the world from inside out. He said he could see that in me and in the way I treat everyone.

Part of me wanted to stop him and tell him how I haven’t been to church in a few weeks, how I hate my ward, how sometimes I swear, watch rated R movies, think bad about Provo Mormons, wish I didn’t have to go to church,  how I don’t read my scriptures often enough, don’t write in my journal, how I don’t pray enough, I’m ungrateful, my temple recommend is expired, I don’t even want to go to the temple some days, and how terrible of a person I feel like all the time.

But I listened. And wow. He took all my words away. I couldn’t even reply to all the wonderful things he was saying about me.

I forgot about all the good things about me. But for those five minutes that I stayed in his room I got a glimpse again.