What I appreciate about Jesus was his patience and transparency. Patience because we had to try to teach my 4-year-old how to do a nasal rinse after sinus surgery (4x/day). In the beginning, it was clear that we were basically waterboarding her until she puked up blood & all her meds & ended up in hysterics. Every single time. He was so calm and clear, and he helped us to teach her how to hold her throat closed so that she finally stopped choking (again I need to emphasize the amount of patience and repetition this took). Amazing.

Secondly, a few of the nurses (probably unintentionally) would try to make deals with L and say, “you can go right back to sleep if you take this medicine.” So, she’d reluctantly agree to take the medicine and then they would say “now we just have to do this and this- and THEN you can go back to sleep”. She quickly caught on to this rouse and did not appreciate it and started to distrust the nurses when they would make “deals” with her. And I didn’t blame her. She was misled. But Jesus would always explain very clearly what needed to happen in what order they needed to happen and patiently wait for her to come around and agree to whatever interventions he listed off. I SO APPRECIATED THAT HONESTY. I want my daughter to grow up to be able to trust people in scrubs - and not assume they’re trying to pull a fast one on her.

Lastly, Jesus is real. He has a sense of humor - and lets it rip when it’s appropriate and parents need to laugh when under this kind of stress. His one-liners were sometimes the highlight of my day.