I have a “life verse.”  Before adopting this so-called life verse, I always thought of people who said they had one as being a little woo-woo.  I didn’t understand how to claim something from the Bible as my own.  I’m sure I was a little cynical about life verses before finding mine, because I assumed that people would find something they liked without a deep personal story and just roll with it. I was dismissive of the randomness of picking a verse.  I want to apologize to anyone that I didn’t pay attention to because of that attitude.   A life verse can be consequential and anyone who claims one may have a story that is worth considering. Really, anything that is a lifelong commitment is worthy of our attention because of the great care it takes to select and cultivate.  I tend to not want to make life defining pronouncements. This is probably because they may be more of a fleeting fancy than something with the substance of a true resolution. As I write this, it is Lent in the Christian calendar. I normally honor the season by stopping or starting a habit as a way of focusing on the coming of Easter. This year, I decided to start reading the four Biblical gospels and stop eating food after dinner. Little more spiritual nourishment and a  little less dessert nourishment. I picked them as short-term commitments.  It seems logical that a long term commitment like a life verse would require even more consideration than what to do for Lent. However, what I’m about to tell you isn’t so much about me picking a verse, it's a story of a verse picking me.As I was going through graduate school, I also worked full time at our local hospital.  To manage my stress level, I gravitated towards a hybrid role that was a mix of a floor secretary (processing medical orders from doctors and nurses), a Care Partner (having direct patient care responsibilities in partnership with the nurses), and, for difficult patients, a Sitter (literally sitting with them and carefully watching so they wouldn’t fall, pull out their IVs, or commit self-harm). I sat with lots of people who were in critical condition. While I never saw someone pass away, there were a number of patients who I spent the last days or hours with - being on high alert monitoring the patients’ vital signs and taking care of the family’s needs.On my last day at the hospital - a day that I had no idea would actually be my last - I brought my Bible. It wasn’t ever my expectation to read to the patient, but some days when I was responsible for sitting, I needed a good long read. I would only read the Bible to the patient if they directly asked me to share with them. It happened to be on this day, the patient was curious about what I was reading.  So I read to them this passage:“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”My Bible does have lots of notes scribbled on the margins of the pages. However, it rarely lists the time and place when a verse carried indelible personal significance. I did make a note of this verse that day. March 2010. Soon after reading to the patient, I was asked to go to HR. I had been in two patient fall cases in recent weeks when I misjudged when I should give them privacy while they were using the bathroom. It was time for me to resign. Four years later, after a long bout of depression, I found myself on the edge of another resignation. I didn’t know when it was going to happen, but it definitely felt like there was a strong possibility that I would need to step down. Many of my coworkers knew that I had been hospitalized the previous year...