Ms. Lola, Can you get me a picture of Jesus?

It's no secret that I LOVE children. Not sure if I was born like this or if it's just a natural instinct most women have by a certain age but as long as I can remember even as child, I just ALWAYS loved kids (even if they do drive me crazy sometimes). Everything I do, I make sure that I am surrounded by these precious spirits. Dance classes, primary classes, nieces & nephews, work... On a bad day, I would say "I need my baby fix" and take a walk to our baby floor and rock one of the babies as though they were my own.

But this day was a different day, a day I felt guilty for. Let's rewind to days and months past. I've always tried to have at least one spiritual thought with every child I was around. Corny?... who cares. I think with every child I encountered I was able to have that time with them. I know what you are thinking, and no I'm not much of a missionary as I should but, have you noticed your heart melt everytime you hear a childs prayer or sing about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ or the Gospel? Or the fact that I work with kids that have a straight ticket to the Celestial kingdom that was spiritaul enough. I strive for those moments where my heart confirms the knowledge that I have and those moments hit me strong from a voice of a child. (If you haven't experienced that I highly suggest you seek for it). Here's what I felt guilty for, I never had spiritual discussions with children at work. I'm not sure if it was just because you dont bring religious views to a professional environment or if I can even use that as an excuse... but for whatever reason it was. I was using it.

(background)I work at a health care organization that provides medical services to children with developmental and physical disabilities. These kids are severally medically fragile that just in my first month of employment, 3 babies had passed away.

So, back to this day. We have a patient that has no family and no outside contacts that she could reach out to if ever she was in time of need. For weeks I was receiving complaints that she was having outbursts. Crying that someone was going to take her away, the bad people were going to hurt or kill her, trying to hide etc. That day, she was doing all the same. As usual we annalyze the situations, draw up conclusions, look for precursors and antacedants, and come up with resolutions to react AFTER the behaviors happen and try to identify the events that happen BEFORE to refrain from it all. Nothing was working. Floor staff were getting frustrated, office staff tried to step in... after my attempt of going out to help, I just brushed it off for someone else to use their techniques hoping it would be better than mine. Hours later, this precious angel wheeled her way in to my office (I was caught up in my report and tried to multitask while talking with her, so I did not have any eye contact with her) she parked her wheelchair in front of my desk and said to me with tears in her eyes "Ms. Lola, Can you get me a picture of Jesus?". I have to tell you, at that moment my eyes became a water fall. How could I be so careless not to think of her situation? She felt alone in the world, and it didn't come to me to provide her comfort with the one thing I know in this world to be true? Needless to say the next day I showed up to work with 4 different pictures of Jesus for her to choose from. She took all of them. She has not had a behavior since and everytime I walk by her she would tap her purse with a smile on her face to let me know that Jesus was with her.

The patient is an African American so I thought this picture would be perfect, I showed her the picture and tears fell from her eyes. Pink is her favorite color.

Recipe of the day: Everyone is God's children