Girls, I know your Secret

I know you. You may not know this, but I do. We're not talking about just recognition here....I mean I really KNOW you.

You who call me back and know you are going to have to find a near-impossible vein to stick and blood to draw.

You, who walk into an exam room with a thermometer and blood pressure cuff and smile and ask about how I am doing.

You, who stroll in after the Med Techs with a stethascope around your neck, files in your arms, professional game face on, and treatments to discuss.

You, who greet me at my chair, puncture my skin and fill me with protocol, bustling back and forth to answer beeping machines and imploring patients.

You think I don't know what's going on behind the practiced words, the game-face smiles,
the professional language, the subtle hand-patting? You think I haven't figured you all out who stand behind the glass window and cover yourselves with white coats or colorful scrubs or classy clothes?

I know your secret, I have you pegged. I know you. I know that behind your professionalism,
behind the face that belies the things you see and do and know about me, you are harboring something. But you can't fool me....not after seven years. I know your secret because I know your heart. I know that you love me!

There, I've said it! Even though we may never exchange those exact words with one another,
I know it is there. Just by the very nature of what you do, the very ability you have to face your patients and their awful disease every day. Your dedication to helping me and others like me to live another day, week, month....years is incredible.

I know you love me because I know that no matter how a person acts, looks, talks, smells, behaves....not matter what...you will do your best to treat them with respect, dignity, compassion, gentleness, and kindness, and I am one of those people. You love me because you love your fellow humans enough to dedicate your lives to making our lives liveable during a time of great crisis, anxiety and pain.

So don't think I don't know...that I don't notice all you do....all you are....all the love you have in your heart for people like me. I feel it in some subtle way every time I walk through the front doors of the office on Asheville Avenue.

I won't tell anyone, but I just wanted you to know you haven't fooled me, no sir. Even more important than that, you haven't fooled someone else who once said something like this:
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Matthew 25:40

Jesus knows your secret, too.