Nurse and Therapist-what is the difference?

On the About Me page, I mention that I was challenged to write. The small story behind that starts with a recent evaluation meeting with my nurse manager at the behavioral health hospital. He posed the question, “What is the difference between nursing and therapy?” After I pondered and tried to give a lofty, academic answer, he told me, “I’ve heard that nursing is a mile wide and an inch deep, whereas therapy is an inch wide and a mile deep.”

Hhhmmmm. I told him, “I’ll have to think more about that!” I broached the subject with the supervisor working with me to get my Marriage and Family Therapy license. Wisely, instead of telling me what he thought, he assisted me to delve more deeply into my own thoughts. Then, the fateful words came: “I think you should write about that Rhonda!” The next couple of meetings with him brought the same encouragement after I processed a thought about the nature of therapy or how best to help someone. “I think you should write about that Rhonda!”

So…here I am!

The more I pondered the question, the more my thoughts tangled until they resembled my skein of yarn the day Maggie decided it was a fun toy.

The effort to relieve my discombobulation brought me to another question: Does it matter what the differences are? I don’t know if the professor who told the nurses in my grad classes that doing therapy requires a higher level of thinking would disagree, but I came up with a resounding NO. I love both of my careers and I am proud of my work in each of them. They have some similarities and they have some differences but no matter the environment I am in or which education I am using, my goal is to love God and love people.

Psalm 42:7 talks about deep calling to deep. There are various ideas about what this verse means but I believe there is a “deep” in each of us. We can choose to use the deep in ourselves to call to the deep in others. I think about this often when I am sitting in the sacred space of the therapy room or when I am passing meds and doling out education with my nurse hat on. (Thus, the name of my blog: Calling The Deep.)

Do you need a degree or a specific type of education to call to the deep in others? To love God and love people well? Again, a resounding NO! It does not matter where you are, what you are doing, or who you are interacting with, YOU can call to the deep in others. YOU can use the gifts, abilities, and personality God gave you to show his love to those around you. Whether you interact with a multitude of people daily or only a few, you have an impact, and how you interact with people matters.

God’s word has substantial counsel on this subject. Here are a few that influence my daily life:

• Matthew 22:35-39 (NLT) says, “An expert in religious law tried to trap Him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?’ Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself.'”
• John 13:34 (NLT)-“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.”
• Galations 5:14 (NLT)-For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

I encourage you to be intentional about finding ways to show God’s love to the people in your sphere of influence. Or to the stranger in front of you in the grocery line. As you go about your daily work, whatever it is, know the deep in yourself and use it to call to the deep in others.

I would delight in knowing my readers’ favorite ways of loving God by loving people. Give a comment if you wish! (It’s not bragging, we all have different gifts and you may inspire someone if you share:)