the eyes of the Lord are in every place

Eileen Marston tells us how she has experienced this truth from Proverbs 15:3

Born with a visual impairment, I struggled at school and was told to reconsider my ambition to become a nurse. However, the desire never left me, and in 1986, I took a leap of faith and was accepted into nurse training in London.

With a non-obvious disability, I have met with challenges, including bullying and harassment; not what you would expect from a caring profession. However, God has always shown up in his perfect timing to support me in carrying out my duties. From resuscitating a baby in A&E, to caring for a patient on her last day of life. He has guided my steps with wisdom and understanding and helped me master the practical skills needed to look after those under my care.

Not through my own abilities, but through his power and presence, amazing doors of opportunity have also been opened in my career. During my RGN training, I achieved a scholarship for a nursing project at a university in America, and studied paediatric nursing at Great Ormond Street.

There is nothing that disqualifies us from being used by God. However, there are some attributes that we can cultivate to make God’s work easier: faith, courage, willingness, and teachability are all vital qualities for God to use us for his purposes.

‘For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works…’. (Ephesians 2:10) We must never limit God to just Church on Sundays, but pray and expect him to show up in the everyday minutiae of our lives.

living by faith, not by sight

Disability did not disable my nursing ambition,
nor bind me in rigid embrace.
I was set free by God’s plan for my life,
exchanging negative narratives
for the underserved gifts,
of his power, mercy and grace.

Following in the footsteps of the ‘Lady of the Lamp’,
I graduated a Nightingale nurse
but, ‘how on earth?’
Echo words from long ago,
because God parted the seas,
his voice – soft as a gentle breeze
called me to his purpose.

You see,
I have learned to live by faith and not by sight
and with him by my side, he who moves mountains.
I can identify through just knowing,
I am qualified and equipped solely in him,
in whom I abide.

Eileen Marston is an adult nurse working in Oxford