The Fern Lodge staff is a dedicated and hard-working family. We would like to introduce them to you, and we’ll begin with a very brief overview of the loving and inspired individuals who serve here as Christian Science nurses.
English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Tagalog, Chinese and Japanese — remarkably, these are the languages our Christian Science nurses speak! We asked them a handful of questions ranging from a simple, Where are you from?, to the more complex question, What made you become a Christian Science nurse? Their answers provide a snapshot of a diverse group of individuals brought together by their love for God, for their fellow man, and for Christian Science.
The Christian Science nurses at Fern Lodge hail from all over the United States — New York, Texas, Ohio and California — and as far away as Mexico, the Philippines and Peru. Some were raised in a Christian Science family, while others were introduced to it by a family member or friend, or through the Christian Science periodicals.
Not surprisingly, they followed very individual paths to becoming Christian Science nurses. “God showed me the Love that was at work there” — that’s how one of our nurses related why she became a Christian Science nurse. An instantaneous healing drew another staff member to the work. While one staff member was inspired to pursue nursing after helping to care for someone, another came into nursing after being on the receiving end of nursing care. For many, it was a process of yielding to God’s lead in their lives. Some of our Christian Science nurses admit to originally not wanting to be nurses at all.
In some instances, God just made it perfectly clear: “God said to me, you are going to be a Christian Science nurse,” relates one. And another says, “I was reading a Journal one day and an angel thought told me I was going to be a Christian Science nurse—as I was looking at an ad for Christian Science nursing.” A third describes it this way: “Through prayer, the way gradually opened up for me. I can still see the sunlight shining through the tall evergreens onto a picnic table where I studied.”
In a way, one of them summed it all up for everyone, “I love applying Christ Jesus’ second great commandment, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ through Christian Science nursing.”