I choose.

When my pastor, mentor, and—most importantly—friend visited me the other day, she told me something that stuck with me. She said, “My goal when I was in the hospital was to be the favorite patient. To be the patient every nurse wanted to get.”

And honestly, my goal has always been something similar.

When I’m hospitalized, my goal has always been to bring joy and peace to the nurses and staff caring for me. And, in turn, that often does make you a favorite patient. But it isn’t because it matters whether everyone likes you. It’s because I want to leave a little joy behind me wherever I go. I want the people caring for me to feel cared for, too. I want to cultivate an atmosphere that is different in my room than any other patient room.

Tonight, as I sit here on the eve of yet another surgery, that goal remains the same.

I want every person I meet to leave an interaction with me carrying a little more joy and a little more peace than they had when they walked into my room. I want to bring something into these hospital halls that isn't always common here.

Tonight, my nurse came in to give me my medications, and we started talking. Eventually, he grabbed a chair, sat down, and we just talked.

We talked about burns. Nursing. Why this work matters. What it truly means to have a good support system. Support groups. Burn survivorship. And so much more.

I shared with him why I do the work I do to support other survivors and how deeply it has changed me. I told him about World Burn Congress and why I believe spaces like that are so important. I opened up and shared pieces of my story. And he was captivated.

Then he looked at me and said, “The work you do is admirable and incredible. You are changing so many lives by what you do. Thank you for that.”

And honestly, I was amazed.

Here was a nurse who had known me for only a few moments. He had worked on this unit for three years, had cared for countless patients, and yet somehow, in one conversation, he saw something in me beyond the hospital bed. Beyond the wounds. Beyond the surgeries.

He saw the work.

He saw the purpose.

He saw the reason I keep showing up for other survivors.

And maybe that is part of what I’ve learned through all of this.

Because somehow, even here—even in pain, even on the eve of another surgery—I am still trying to bring joy into a place that can so easily swallow it. Even in the midst of the busy of my own care, I am able to walk the halls listening to worship music and praying for the atmosphere of the floor.

I don't get to choose whether I am in pain.

I don't get to choose whether another surgery is necessary.

I don't get to choose how long recovery will take, how difficult the next day will be, or what tomorrow will bring.

But I do get to choose what I bring into the room.

I can choose kindness when I am hurting.

I can choose laughter when I am exhausted.

I can choose gratitude when I am frustrated.

I can choose to listen when someone else needs to talk.

I can choose to pray for the place as I dwell in it.

I can choose to remind the nurses that they are more than the hands changing my dressings or the people pushing medications through my IV.

They are human beings, too.

People with long shifts, tired feet, burdens waiting for them outside these hospital walls, and stories I may never know. And I can choose to let the people around me see that there is still light here.

So whether I am in pain or in peace, in suffering or in sorrow, in anger or in gratitude, in the good times or the really, really bad ones…

In every mountain.

In every valley.

In every hospital room.

In every surgery.

I CHOOSE joy.

I CHOOSE peace.

I CHOOSE to bring those things with me wherever I go.

Not because I have somehow figured out how to be happy all the time.

Not because this journey is easy.

But because I know what it feels like to walk into a dark place and desperately need someone to bring a little light with them.

So if I can be that person for someone else—even for just a few minutes in a hospital room—then maybe this pain can become something more than pain.

Maybe it can become a place where light is carried.

And maybe, just maybe, that is one of the reasons I am here.

If that means asking a nurse how their shift is going, asking how I can serve them in that moment, telling them how incredibly well they are doing, smiling as they pass my room, sharing a piece of chocolate, or simply saying, “Thank you”—then I will.

Because kindness does not have to be grand to be holy.

Sometimes it looks like a smile from a hospital bed.

Sometimes it sounds like laughter in the middle of pain.

Sometimes it is a chocolate shared between a nurse and a patient.

Sometimes it is simply noticing the person who has spent all day caring for you and taking a moment to care for them, too.

I have been through much that I never would have chosen. But somewhere along the way, God planted things in the soil of my life that I did not expect to find there.

Joy.

Peace.

Compassion.

Purpose.

And now, even in places of pain, I find myself standing in the middle of a harvest.

So I will share it.

I will scatter its seeds freely.

I will give away the kindness, the joy, and the peace that have somehow grown in me through every season.

Not because I grew them on my own.

But because I have been blessed with them.

And if there is a harvest in my life—if God has brought anything beautiful from the ashes—then I don't want to keep it for myself.

I want everyone who crosses my path to reap some of its goodness.

Even here.

Especially here.