This BA Nurse Is Ready For Goliath

I’m a nurse. It is beyond surreal to watch the news and see New York City, which is roughly 10 hours away, look like a post-apocalyptic movie scene with doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and healthcare workers (HCW) dressed as characters from Outbreak. To know that I may experience something similar within the next few weeks is mind-boggling, but somehow I feel ready.

I’ve read about this virus and the damage it can cause. I’ve learned about different COVID-19 predictive analyses, but I don’t really know what the battle is going to look like, smell like, and feel like. Whatever battle it is though, it has me charged. I’m in fight mode. I feel confident. I feel like victory. I am lying in wait with a team of badasses for an invisible giant, and it’s weirdly invigorating. I feel like David.

I’ve always liked the story about David and Goliath. The giant was a champion fighter with lots of armor and weapons, but he was the enemy. He taunted the Israelites for 40 days, threatening to overcome them. The Israelites were frightened of Goliath. They felt like underdogs. David, though, was ready to battle. With skepticism, Saul agreed to send him to fight the giant. David did what he knew how to do. Low and behold, he shot a stone, stuck it, and Goliath fell flat on his face. Years later, David got a crown. He was made for that battle.

Maybe I’m so confident because I’ve had the opportunity to see and hear how our leaders are preparing us. Maybe it’s because I’ve bared witness to incredible community action. Maybe it’s also because I’m freaking made for this, and so are about 50,000 other people around here. Almost every HCW that I talk to says the same thing, “just get here, already.” We’re prepared. We’re supported. We’ve got each other’s backs, and we’re good at our jobs.

Sure there are always more things to teach, coordinate and prepare, but our heads are in the game. We’ve got our five stones (like David), and we’re ready to sink one right into the forehead of this thing and drop it. I’ll even go so far as to say we’ll cut its crown-shaped-virus head off. My crown comes from my Father, and it’s on straight. We are “beautifully and wonderfully made” for this!

My confidence doesn’t suggest that we won’t see loss. That it won’t be brutal. Every battle has casualties, but people who walk with God do not walk into the fight timidly or with fear. We walk into it with confidence we will overcome.

Going back to the bedside to care for patients again feels like riding my favorite old bike. The only difference is, this time, I’ll be wearing an N95 mask, a face shield, and an isolation gown. I’ve missed the ride, and I still love it.

This virus may separate me from my family for a while, but my husband will still be my soft place to land and keep me laughing. I won’t let the separation keep me from loving my angsty teenagers or sweet quarantined mom. I declare that my kids will keep talking to me and that God will show up, so my mom will not celebrate Easter alone.

We encounter extreme suffering so rarely. Most believers don’t even realize the power we carry—the gifts with which we’ve been blessed. Our gifts have power because we’ve been given them from a powerful God. I’m not ready because of my nursing skills alone. I’m ready because I follow Jesus. He can use you and your skills—whatever they are—to fight valiantly too.

David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”
- 1 Sam 17:32-37

Piss off, Goliath. PISS. OFF.