For those whose calling is to heal

1.
For those whose calling is to heal,
whose hands bring calm release,
we thank you, Lord, whose mercy grows
like meadowsweet in peace.

2.
For nurses keeping watch by night,
for doctors holding fast,
your strength is in their steady care
like yarrow in the grass.

3.
For those who tend our wounds with grace
and soothe our anxious mind,
your kindness blooms in self‑heal’s flower
where hope is hard to find.

4.
For those who guard our fragile breath
and walk where sorrows lie,
your comfort drifts like bog‑myrtle
beneath a twilight sky.

5.
Through them your healing love flows on,
as willow eases pain;
as elder shelters weary hearts,
your mercy falls like rain.

6.
So bless their labour, guard their rest,
renew their strength each day;
and let your wisdom guide their hands
in every chosen way.

Hymn information

First line: For those whose calling is to heal
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: CM
Tune: Kilmarnock or Crimond, or St Columba
Theme: healthcare, nursing, medicine

Reflection

Through the Healing Plants

When I wrote this hymn, I realised I wasn’t only giving thanks for doctors and nurses in the abstract. I was trying to name something I live inside every week: the strange, tender reality of being someone who needs a lot of care, and who has learned to move through that with a kind of quiet endurance. I don’t always have the words for what that feels like, but the plants helped me find them.

Meadowsweet was the first. Its soft, honeyed scent has always felt like a promise that pain can be eased, even if only a little. When I sit in a waiting room or lie on a treatment bed, I sometimes imagine that gentleness settling around me. It’s not dramatic. It’s just… kind. Like the nurses who remember how I steady myself, or the doctor who explains things slowly so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Yarrow came next—that small, resilient plant that grows in places most people don’t notice. It feels like the perfect image for the people who hold things together when I’m frayed. They don’t make a fuss. They just keep showing up, steady and sure, the way yarrow holds its ground in the wind.

Self‑heal is the one that feels closest to my own story. A tiny purple flower that appears in the grass as if to say, “Healing is possible, even here.” I think about that a lot. I don’t always feel strong, but I do keep going. And the people who care for me each week meet that effort with their own—a kind of shared work, quiet and real.

Bog‑myrtle carries the scent of calm. I think of it when someone speaks gently to me on a hard day, or when a familiar nurse notices I’m struggling before I say anything. It’s the kind of comfort that doesn’t demand anything from me. It just sits beside me like a soft breath.

Willow and elder feel like the deeper layers—the long, ancient wisdom of easing pain and offering shelter. There are moments in care when I feel held in that way: not just treated, but understood. Not just monitored, but accompanied. Those moments matter more than I can explain.

Writing the hymn helped me see all of this more clearly. It let me honour the people who help me stay upright, and it let me honour the land that has always whispered its own language of healing. These plants are not metaphors to me; they are companions. They help me make sense of the world, especially when the world feels too sharp or too fast.

And maybe that’s the heart of it: the hymn is gratitude shaped through the things that steady me—the people who care for me, and the plants that remind me that healing can be small, slow, and still holy.

Copyright 

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026. 
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.

Written recently and shared here as part of the NeuroDivine hymn collection.