(Photo Credit: Kimona Paramour Photography)

I only work once every two weeks. Since most people at my job work every other weekend, I see the same group almost every Friday night. When I work an extra shift, like I did this past weekend, I see people I sometimes haven’t seen in 6 months or more.

The nurse I was getting report from hadn’t seen me in at least that long. I’d been pregnant with number seven the last time we’d crossed paths.

She gave me a once over and commented that I’d lost a lot of weight. It didn’t sound like a compliment. Then, she asked if I’d had a boy or a girl.

How many boys did I have now? She wanted to know. I told her, as I took off my coat and put away my bag. Will you keep going? She asked.

I was grabbing my pen and paper to take report. When I heard, Will you keep going?, I was half listening as I got ready. I heard it from the place that I’m in right now.

I’m a little overwhelmed. I’m also getting to do the things I chose to do and want to do: I’m working. I’m homeschooling my kids. I’m traveling. It’s a bit much, but it is also mostly good.

Yes, I wake up every morning and I choose to keep going.

When I saw the look on her face, I immediately realized what she was asking. It was a question many people have asked and one that to anyone but my closest friends, is none of their business.

I know as nurses, we routinely ask personal questions of people we have just met. We ask them about their medical histories, their personal lives, their relationships, and their habits. It can’t be embarrassing for us. It’s important that we put our patients, who are already feeling vulnerable, at ease.

Sometimes, I find the personal conversations we have with our patients make it seem OK to ask similarly personal questions of our coworkers, even ones we don’t know well.

I’ve been asked about the size of my breasts, my weight, family planning, and probing parenting questions by my fellow nurses. They were truly just making conversation. At the time, I answered the questions in the way you do when you are so shocked that good behavior kicks in to get you through.

I recovered myself: Oh, you mean will I keep going with growing my family? No, this was the last one!

I think that’s wise, she said.

I didn’t even respond. How can you respond to something like that?

I get that my life choices are radically different from many people’s. I get that they are at odds with our current culture and that many people can’t understand why I’ve made the choices I have.

I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, but it gets under my skin a little when I feel like people I barely know are making it a point to let me know of their disapproval.

It bothered me for the rest of the night, in that nagging way where I wondered if there was a way that I could have responded that would have ended things on a better note.

It made me wonder how many times I have said rude things to coworkers and acquaintances without realizing it.

Whenever I think about this, I always come back to love. As in, I Corinthians 13 love.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. … For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Nothing I say will really matter. The way I respond DOES matter, and so I hope to do it graciously in love. It’s the only response that can make a positive difference.