A Nurse's Day: September 26, 2011

I have always wanted to be a nurse. When I was little I read books about Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. I set my sights on being a nurse and started my career as a Candy Striper, graduated to a Nurse's Aide, and now I have been an RN for 27 years! I can't believe it's been that long and I feel old when my pt's ask me how long I have been a nurse. Their typical response,"You don't look that old!". I don't know if they say that because it's true or they don't want me to feel bad about it. Either way, I love what I do, most days.

Yesterday I had to drag myself from my nice warm bed, kiss the boys goodbye as they slept, and drive the 1 1/2hrs to work by 7a.m.. I work in a large teaching hospital and I wouldn't have it any other way. There is so much to learn and new ideas regarding medicine, diagnostics, and treatment that you cannot find in those small country hospitals. The pay is a little nicer than those small hospitals offer also. Anyway......

Some days I go through my work and I am just glad the day is over. There are days, and this was one of them, that I leave work knowing I have made a difference in the lives of my patients. That this was my calling and that God had orchestrated these people into my life as a nurse. Nothing unusual happened, but my patients were taken care of and improving after 12 hours. They were grateful and content with their day's accomplishments. My prayer for them is to get well and return home to the one's they love. I always hope that they will walk a little closer to Jesus through their experiences. 

This assurance at the end of one of these days is so important to me. But I don't realize it until that feeling hits me. You see my father thinks that I should go into the hospitals, lay my hands on the sick people, and have God heal them all. He doesn't understand what I do. He thinks it is a waste of time and that the doctors are in it just for the money. These ideas are so pervasive in the male side of my family (excluding my little brother) that my one brother wasn't even sure what I did. I was talking about working in the Electrophysiology Lab and shocking a patient out of a lethal rhythm. He looked at me wide eyed and asked, " You do that? I didn't know that is the kind of nurse you are!". I am not sure what he thought I did, but I have a feeling it included bedpans somewhere. 

So how do I reconcile the fact that my father thinks that what I do is worthless? My heart aches when he talks like this. I doubt myself and what I do as a nurse, is it of any value? How does this happen? After 27 years my dad can make one comment and I fall off the deep end. I not only fall off the deep end but I don't even try to hang on to the cliff, or call for help, or fight back! What is worse, my sons listen to this entire conversation and realize that I am not standing up for myself. When did I lose my voice? 

Yesterday was one of the days that I knew God called me to be a nurse. That I am right where I am supposed to be. My job may not be glamorous but I am very good at what I do and it's not because of anything that I have done. It is because of who God has made me to be. He has shown me compassion, mercy, and grace under difficult circumstances. I have had some hard life lessons but they have made me who I am today. If God's grace had not been there I know I would be a bitter Nurse Ratched! HA!

He has shown me how to listen to my patient's, what they are saying behind the words I hear. What their fears are, their hopes, and their struggles. I know how to comfort them with words and actions. I know how much my support means to them, even if they can't say it. I have learned that sometimes people are mean and snap at me because they are trying to hold onto some kind of normalcy while their world spins out of control. 

So as I left work yesterday, He reminded me that His eyes were upon me. That He was capable and willing to lead me on this path of ever expanding knowing and doing. He is good. The funny thing is, I always thought God would teach me things in a quick, clear spectacular manner. But He doesn't, He has perfect timing. He teaches me in ways that are usual and intricate. He peels away the layers of my understanding and reassembles it in my mind. He is transforming me and this makes me so happy. 

I loved being a nurse yesterday! When I gave report to the oncoming young nurse whose inexperience and lack of knowledge would have irritated me in days gone by, I took the time to talk to her about how to care for her patients. Instead of being brash and dismissing her I educated her how to be better at what she does.  To my surprise she was soaking it all up like a sponge. 

Yes, it was a good day. I love being a nurse. God in His infinite wisdom placed that desire in me a long time ago and I am thankful for that. 

Now, what I am going to do with my dad and those interactions??? I know God will show me how to figure that one out. I have a feeling those layers go deep and I trust, in His timing, they will be peeled away. 

For today, I am content living with Him.

Crazy Farm

Where, along the way, did I become a doormat for my son? I know he's 14 and has to assert his independence, but really???? Now I am a single mother, I have to work for us to eat and have a roof over our heads. But now my son thinks he needs to arrange my work schedule around his social activities. I can't work Thursdays because his girlfriend has volleyball games then and we HAVE to go. The weekends are out because you never know what will happen at any given moment. Oh, and why can't she come over when the guys come over? She's just a friend like them. I almost fell for this argument but then I realized, I can leave the house for a while when" just the guys are over". No work on Wednesdays or Fridays because of football games at school. I guess that leaves Monday and Tuesdays. "By the way, don't work on November 20th, I have plans" he tells me as he's going to bed last night.

I think I am going to go to the crazy farm today. I have traveled down that toad many times. I know my kids think I live there 24/7, and there's a possibility they might be right. Maybe I do have insane expectations. Like, you're not allowed to listen to Eminem, especially not the explicit versions. He doesn't talk like that in front of his own kids but I should let him talk like that to you?

Last night, laying in bed all I could was talk to Jesus and tell him exactly what was going on. See I must be crazy because He knows already. But I think it was my way of holding on to His hand even tighter and letting Him know, that I know I can't do this without Him.

You know I sent the boys off to visit with their dad, this doesn't happen often, that he wants to spend time with them. So I began praying for a healing in the boy's hearts, whatever God was going to do, that it would bring some peace to them as far as their father is concerned. Funny how I pray, thinking I know what is best for everyone and how God should handle things.

Little did I know, that He would use this opportunity to heal something in MY heart. I have forgiven my ex over and over, but I have never been able to freely love him again as a person. I thought that would be an impossibility. God is starting to untangle something in me. A way to love my ex, my children, and hopefully others in a brand new way. Letting those in my life be exactly who they are and not having to fix or change them. That's God's business, not mine. It doesn't mean I agree with what they do, but I can love them where they are. Isn't that what Papa does with me, he loves me right here and now. He knows that His work is not done, it's a process He has promised to complete in me.

He has a way of getting at things in my life, things I didn't know needed fixing...or at least wasn't high on MY list of priorities. Jesus knows better what I need and where to start......He's amazing like that, right?

A new beginning

I saw a post on one of my Fb friend's profile. In the post she spoke of her wedding anniversary celebration, 26 years. What an accomplishment. She continued to say that the greatest thing in life is finding someone who knows all your mistakes and differences and, in spite of it all, finds you absolutely amazing. I was immediately happy for her and her husband. It took a moment and then it sank in, I wish that were me. I wish I had still had that someone who thought I was amazing. Someone who would walk this life with me as a witness to all we had accomplished. Especially as we watched our children grow into their own persons, with their own thoughts and ideas they shared with us.

You see, this is not the case for me. I have been divorced for 6 years now, raising these two wonderful and challenging boys. This divorce was not my choice. I have come to live with this reality. I know it takes two to make it work or not, but when I'm the only one trying to make it work it doesn't get far.

In these 6 years I have grown tremendously. I have learned to walk on a new journey, one that is accompanied by Jesus. He found me at the very bottom and held my hand that night. He has continued to walk with me every step of the way. This is not the Jesus I grew up with in church on Sundays and holidays. He someone real and alive, someone that I didn't know existed like this, until that night. This is all so new but in some ways it's not. He's just showing me who He is in a different way. Leave it to Jesus, the One that made us all so different and unique, to have the same quality. Go figure.....

Jesus has done some amazing things in my life, things that never would have happened if I had still been married to the same man. I have come to know that He does make horrible situations a thing of beauty, something to be cherished. Believe me, it isn't pretty all the time, but I know He's with me even in the ugly. That makes it ok.

More and more I am impressed with how Jesus fills in the space that is created by being husbandless. Now I listen to love songs that used to send me on a downward spiral of guilt, loneliness, and longing and my heart beams with the knowledge of an unfailing love that will never leave me. Just listen to the lyrics from the song To Make You Feel My Love, I enjoy the version sung by Adele:

When the rain is blowing in your face
And the whole world is on your case
I would offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love
When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love
I know you haven't made your mind up yet
But I would never do you wrong
I've known it from the moment that we met
No doubt in my mind where you belong
I'd go hungry, I'd go blind for you
I'd go crawling down the aisle for you
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love
The storms are raging on a rolling sea
Down the highway of regret
The winds of change are blowing wild and free
But you ain't seen nothing like me yet
There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends of the earth for you
Make you happy, make your dreams come true
To make you feel my love

It reminds me that God knew me before the foundation of the world, He loved me then as He loves me now. What a comfort to know. I pray I can always live in that space, that is the challenge.