A Day in the Life of a Chaplain: Bringing Grace and Hope to Hurting People

By Rick Rood

How can I minister to people in the hospital? How can I bring grace and hope to people in pain? What is a Christian view of death and dying? Of grief and loss? Will I see my baby in heaven? Does God promise always to heal in answer to our prayers? How do we respond in the face of suffering and seemingly unanswered prayer? How does God use life's most difficult experiences? These are just some of the questions that Chaplain Rick Rood addresses in this book.
Weaving together stories from his twenty-three years as a hospital chaplain and insights from Scripture, Rick provides help to those who want to minister effectively to hospital patients and their loved ones. As you read this book, you will walk with him through the various units of a hospital, and encounter situations typically experienced in each one. Rick's prayer is that the Lord might use this book to help its readers become more compassionate and more effective agents of God's grace in the lives of people in pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Feb 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666720266

Book preview

Introduction

I never really planned on serving as a hospital chaplain. Though I had felt called to full-time ministry during my college years, I believed I could best serve the Lord as a pastor or teacher in a college or seminary. The Lord did give me the privilege of filling both of those roles during the first ten years after completing seminary—both as a pastor and as a teacher. And he gave me the privilege of serving with two parachurch ministries as well over the following ten years, primarily ministering to students.

But becoming a chaplain in a hospital wasn’t something I had ever contemplated doing—until I found myself serving as a longtime caregiver to those I loved. I served as caregiver first to my wife, who was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative illness in 1984, and resided in nursing home the last eleven years of her life until her passing in 2003. I then helped to care for my parents during the years my mother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, beginning in 1990.¹ This changed everything. During those years while serving as caregiver to loved ones, I had experienced not only the pain and heartache that frequently comes along with this calling, but also came to experience the depths of God’s grace as he carried us through these difficult years. It was after these many years that I sensed God calling me to serve in the healthcare setting—to become an agent of his grace to others who were traversing a painful season of life.

It’s unlikely that most, or even many, of those who pick up this book will be hospital chaplains (or even contemplating serving in such a role). But my hope and prayer is that what is written in these pages might serve not only to inform, but to encourage those who find themselves navigating the kinds of experiences that usually result in people being hospitalized—or who feel called to serve those who are. Hospitals are generally places most people try to stay away from. But sooner or later, most of us will either be admitted to hospital, or needing to help a friend or loved one who is. I pray that this book will be helpful to those who find themselves in these situations.

A chaplain’s role is similar to that of a pastor. Both are concerned with the spiritual well-being of others. But they are also quite different. While a pastor generally has an ongoing relationship with those he or she is called to serve, the chaplain is called to minister to people whom he does not know personally—and to do so for what is usually a limited period of time. As someone has said, a chaplain feels like he is a pastor to a parade. People come, and then they go. And then more people come, and go as well. This can be frustrating for chaplains, in that they rarely get to witness the long-term results of their efforts in the lives of the people they serve. But on the other hand, a chaplain is privileged to see a vastly greater number of people than any pastor ever will, and probably also from a much wider spectrum of backgrounds—many of whom rarely if ever enter a church. And he sees them during a very critical time in their life, when people are often more sensitive to matters of a spiritual nature. Many times patients may be willing to share things with a hospital chaplain that they might feel uncomfortable sharing with their pastor, primarily because they know they won’t need to relate to the chaplain week in and week out over many years.

Another difference between a chaplain and a pastor of a church is that whereas a pastor usually ministers to people who share his spiritual and theological convictions (at least in general terms), a chaplain is called to minister to everyone who enters the hospital. A hospital is not a church. People come into the hospital for medical care or mental health care, not to seek religious instruction. But at the same time, most people in the hospital find themselves confronted with issues that go far beyond those that can be addressed by medical science. They are spiritual issues that revolve around their relationship with God, and matters of life and death. For this reason, though chaplains must be careful to respect the spiritual background of all whom they serve, they must also be assertive enough to encourage patients to reflect on their relationship with God.

I will be honest at the outset that with the full support of the healthcare facilities I served, I ministered to people from an explicitly Christian frame of reference. This does not mean that I imposed my own beliefs on others. It would be unethical to do so. Nor did I show disrespect to their beliefs. I was very willing to accommodate patients and their families in remaining true to their own convictions or traditions, without being unfaithful to my own. But people knew that I was a Christian chaplain, even though I sought to minister to everyone who came into the hospital. My hope was that those of a different faith (or no faith at all) would be left with the memory of a Christian chaplain who sincerely sought to care for them while they were in the hospital. I pray that this was always so.

Much of what I have written in this book is based on journals which I kept during the twenty-three years I spent serving as chaplain at a medical center, and for twenty of those years also as chaplain at a psychiatric hospital. I served at the medical center all day on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, as well as Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I served at the psychiatric hospital Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Wednesday evenings (when I conducted a worship service for patients who wished to attend). I was also on call during my non-working hours (though I was called not that frequently, for which my family was grateful).

Some of the things I’ve written in this book (especially in the later chapters) may be disturbing to some people. I have tried not to be sensational or dramatic in my accounts of experiences in the hospitals. But at the same time I have not tried to minimize or sugar-coat these experiences. One of the hazards of being chaplain in a hospital is that we are exposed every single day, virtually all day long, to events and experiences which most people find unpleasant, and which they understandably seek to avoid. It took quite a while to get used to being in this environment every day. But once a chaplain becomes acclimated to being there, he (or she) needs to beware of seeing all of life through the lens of these painful experiences. He needs to balance his life by taking time to enjoy God’s good gifts—things such as the beauties of God’s creation, good music, sporting events, and playful times with children and grandchildren. But this does not mean living in denial of life’s realities. Jesus was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa 53:3).² He focused much of his ministry on the sick, the demonized, the grieving, and those whose lives had been brutalized by sin—both the sins of others against them, and their own. Thank God that he did.

My prayer is that this book will instill in its readers a greater compassion for people, and a deeper awareness of the ways in which times of crisis in our lives confront us with a choice—either to turn away from God, or to turn toward him for the mercy and grace we all need at such times in life. I also pray that it will encourage many to see that God can use us as instruments of his grace in the lives of people who are in pain, as we surrender ourselves to him. I’ve observed that those whom God seems to use the most in ministering to the suffering are those who first of all have suffered in some way themselves. There’s something potentially tenderizing about suffering, that enables us to empathize with others who are going through difficult times. But secondly, God uses those who have not only suffered, but have also experienced his grace in the face of affliction. They have known in their experience how God can help us and uphold us during difficult times. This is what qualifies us to encourage and help others by guiding them to drink of the well of God’s strengthening and comforting grace.³

I’ve written this book as though I am walking through a typical day in the hospital, from unit to unit. Where names are used, I have not used the real names of patients or family members. And I have done my best not to reveal the identity of any person. Interspersed between these chapters I have inserted chapters on relevant themes from a Christian and biblical point of view. Please be aware that none of what I write in this book is intended to provide any kind of medical advice or mental health counsel to the reader. But I hope that as you read you will be able to walk with me in your mind’s eye, from unit to unit, and to listen not only to the voices of people encountered in the hospital, but to listen to their hearts as well.

1

. For an account of how God cared for us during these years of illness and caregiving, see Rick Rood, Our Story

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His Story.

2

. Quotations of Scripture will be from the New American Standard Bible unless otherwise indicated.

3

. The thoughts in this paragraph appeared in my book, Our Story

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His Story,

103

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4

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Chapter 1

The Journey Begins

My day typically began between 7:00 and 8:00am. Some chaplains begin their day even earlier, going through the unit where patients are prepared for surgery, offering to pray with them. This is an important thing to do, as most patients are anxious before surgery. This is normal. It’s not our role to encourage them to pretend not to be afraid, or to feel inadequate if they are. Rather, our purpose is to help them bring their fears to God in prayer. As the psalmist says, When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You (Ps 56:3).

After arriving at my office in the hospital, I walked over to the medical records department to have the daily census printed out. This was a list of all the patients admitted to the hospital, with their name, age, doctor, and admitting diagnosis. Some hospitals include the patient’s religious affiliation (if any) in the census as well. At most hospitals, chaplains chart notes on their visits on the hospital computer system. At the hospital I served, I was asked to simply make notes of my visits on my copy of the daily census. So the first thing I did was to transfer my notes from the previous day’s census onto the new census. These records were securely kept in a locked cabinet in my office. People’s medical information is kept in strict confidence in the hospital. Hospital staff are instructed not to discuss or mention a patient’s medical information in the hearing of anyone who does not have a medically necessary need to know, in accordance with the HIPAA law enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996.¹

Before heading to the units to begin my morning rounds, it was my practice to spend time alone reading God’s word, and in prayer. For decades I’ve made it my practice to read through the Bible in an orderly fashion. I would begin with Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament.

Then I would go to the first book of the New Testament, Matthew. And I would alternate back and forth, reading through both of the testaments of the Bible (and usually a commentary on each book as well), until it was time to start over. For many years I also kept a prayer notebook, in which I recorded many of the concerns I had, and about which I knew I needed to regularly pray. I found this to be essential, that before I attempted to minister to others, I gave God an opportunity to minister to me through his word, and to seek his help and guidance through prayer. The apostle Peter tells us that as we serve others through the gifts God has given us, we are all stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Pet 4:10). God communicates his gracious help to people in part through the active ministry of his people. So it’s essential that we maintain a close relationship with him as the source of all grace, that we might be as clear a channel as possible through whom he can work. We cannot transmit to others what we have not first received from him ourselves.

Isaiah 50:4 says,

"The Lord God has given Me the tongue of disciples,

that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word.

He awakens Me morning by morning,

He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple."

Though this passage refers primarily to the Servant of the Lord, whose role we know was ultimately fulfilled in the person of Jesus, it does have application to ourselves. This tells us that if we (like Jesus) are to effectively encourage others, we must first take time to listen to the Lord—morning by morning. In fact, I found it necessary to retreat to my office throughout the day, to be refreshed in my heart, so that I might more effectively serve others. The Gospels make note of Jesus’ practice of taking time to be alone to pray (Luke 5:16). If the incarnate Son of God needed to take time frequently to seek fellowship with his Father, it certainly is all the more necessary for us. This is especially true in a ministry context where we are regularly exposed to situations that can drain us of our emotional and spiritual resources. We will pay a heavy price if we fail to make this our daily practice—and so will those whom we serve. On most days I found these quiet times alone to be sources of renewal and rest in the midst of what could be a very stressful environment.

1

. HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and