As a Christian pediatric ICU nurse who has seen all the terrible things, I can’t stomach platitudes, including Christian platitudes.

Those who have followed my writing here know that I have spent a lot of time wrestling with questions like “Where is God in the PICU – cases of injustice” and issues such as the felt gap between the modern day American church and the hard realities of what we see as nurses. The tensions I have tried to push through in those earlier blog posts have been some of the same tensions I feel when I read overly simplistic or flowery Christian devotionals. My patient cases, and my corresponding spiritual ache, always spring up internally. I long for something more gritty, more honest to some of the horrors and heartbreak we nurses deal with as people with boots on the ground, in the trenches.

When you’re constantly face to face with child abuse, drownings, victims of violence, horrific diseases afflicting the youngest ones in our world, etc., you either skate on the surface of faith, or you ‘fess up to the hard questions these situations force, and you press in deep.

I’m so grateful and thrilled to be able to offer you this free 7-day e-devotional that I created together with the incredible Jessika Sanders, founder of Praying Through Ministries. This is the early fruit of 13+ years of wrestling with God in the PICU, and God’s enduring faithfulness. I hope it might develop into a full-fledged book one day, to further encourage fellow nurses. It’s a resource I wish I had 13 years ago when I started off as a young nurse.

The contents of “Gritty, Gospel-Based Reflections for Nurses in the Trenches” include reflections on:

1. A Nurse’s Ministry in Heavy Spaces

2. Invitation to Lament in a Positivity-Obsessed World

3. Small Offerings in Chaos and Crisis

4. The Gospel and the Superhero Narrative

5. Is it Only the Healed who get the Testimony?

6. Revised Expectations, Refined Faith

7. The Savior Came for Patient and Nurse

For an easy download:

You can go to this site, and scroll down to the form next to my face. It’ll ask you to submit some basic info, but you will not be spammed, I promise! They send a short, beautiful email of encouragement every Monday, but you can unsubscribe from that anytime if you wish.

After you hit “Submit Form,” a link will show up under that Submit button that says “Click here to download your 7-day e-devotional.” Click that link, and the free e-devo goes right to you.

If you find this resource helpful, please share this with your fellow nurses!