Learning to be a Patient Patient

At 20 years old, I found myself sitting in a hospital bed waiting to have surgery the following week. Two days earlier I was doing what every normal missionary did: teaching, working, and sweating. Now, I was laying in a bed with a monitor strapped to my chest to measure every beat of my heart. Seeing my heartbeat was usually a good thing. It meant I was alive. But this time it gave me concern. This concern came not because it was beating but because of how fast it was beating, 300 beats per minute. At that rate, my energy level went down substantially.

As a missionary you are expected to live by certain rules. These rules make sense and help keep you safe and focused. They guide and direct the way you live as a missionary. On the flip side, when you are not a missionary, living all the mission rules prevents living what most consider to be “a normal life.” Since I was technically a missionary but was not doing what missionaries typically do, I found myself faced with some difficulties.

I was not allowed to watch t.v., listen to music, read non mission approved literature, or play any kind of video games. Normally this would not bother me; I kept busy with missionary life, but being confined to a bed, I found that I could only read the few books I had access to for only so long. I became incredibly bored.

The thought of having to wait like this for five days at first killed me. How was I going to make it without any entertainment? As I sat there thinking a thought came into my mind. “Patience is made.” With that thought in mind, I began looking for ways to productively entertain myself without relying on technology. I sought out people to talk with so that I might learn their stories, and I found that not only would they share their stories, but I could also share mine. Opportunities for “unusual” missionary interactions came flooding in!

In the course of mutual sharing, I learned that being patient doesn’t mean waiting without complaining; being patient means filling the time you have with productive activities. In life, patience is required of all of us, whether we are “in-patients” or “out-patients.” Learning how to be a patient patient is truly one of the most important things any of us can ever learn.

A Living Hope

While I was serving as a missionary in Washington D.C., my heart problems began to act up. Without warning my heart would abandon its calm pace of 70 beats per minute (bpm) and begin to race at 300 bpm. This unusual pace or “arrhythmia” as doctors call it, almost entirely incapacitated my ability to do normal missionary work. After my heart went into an arrhythmia, I would travel to the hospital where they would (1) admit me, (2) talk with my doctors, and (3) shock me (cardioversion) to fix my heart. Two to three hours after I was shocked the hospital would release me. This pattern happened three different times. The fourth time my heart went into an arrhythmia, this pattern broke, and the greatest missionary opportunities I had during my mission occurred while I was a patient at Children's National Medical Center.

One of these great missionary opportunities came as I found myself wandering through quiet hospital halls. Because I was a missionary, I couldn’t watch television or listen to music, so I spent a lot of time walking around the cardiac unit. As I rounded one corner, I saw a young Hispanic couple sitting on the floor crying. My eyes went from the couple into the room they were next to where I saw the cause of such sadness, a newborn fighting to live. I continued forward until I reached the couple. Without saying a word I sat down next to them. It must have been odd to have a young white guy wearing a hospital gown, who you have never before met, sit down next to you. After a few moments I looked at them and said, pointing to their child, “That used to be me, but look at me now.” These parents began to open up to me and talked with me. As I explained my story to them I began to see a hope developing in their eyes.

I am convinced that this experience was no coincidence. The opportunity I had to share my story of struggle and triumph with this family that was just embarking on a lifelong journey brought me so much joy. I couldn’t help but pray that they would be able to feel God’s love through their trials; I think they could. As I walked away from this couple, the mother shouted, “Eres mi esperanza!” Which translated into English is, “You are my hope!”