There is so much spinning in my mind I almost don't know where to start. I will start with the biggest change going on at this time.
Yesterday was my last day as a complex case manager at the insurance company for medicare/medicaid. I did not enjoy this job at all. Except that my best friend from high school/nursing school worked there as an educator--that was fun. We got to have lunch almost everyday and talk about faith, family, hospice. That was a huge blessing. Everything else pretty much was...kind of bad, really bad. I finally had the worst supervisor in my nursing career. Mike has had his share of them, but I have been pretty blessed with wonderful directors.
In this time of my life, I feel like I am in a "job desert". I know that God has me here for a reason.
He has been so faithful. I need to write out a few acts of His faithfulness so that I don't forget. Kind of like putting remembrance stones in place.
A couple of Mondays ago it was a very difficult morning dealing with people at work. I had turned in my resignation that previous Friday. My friend Beth texted me to let me know that God had put me on her heart and brain and figured she better check in with me. I was needing that--at that moment! I told her what had been going on and thanked her for following what God had put on her heart, because I needed to know that I was on His. She said that I can so trust that God has me covered because she had a million different things going on, but He wouldn't let her get away from thinking/praying for me. She had Romans 5:3-4 for me.
Wow. I would have never experienced that if I had not been going through that difficult time.
I feel like God is leading to learn a new clinical area. NICU/PICU. I want to go through an internship and learn how to take care of babies and children. In the ER we just learned the basics because they always got transferred out. My friend is the clinical director at BMC and said they are not hiring nurses right now, but in the fall/winter they will and the internship program starts in December. She said they are in desperate need of volunteers to rock the babies. So when the girls start school in August, I will volunteer.
I am doing a Ray Vander Laan study called Walking with God in the Desert. So timely for me. I was studying about the Israelites in the desert. Moses was "venting" to God about the people and said..."...as a nurse carries an infant." Numbers 11:12b. I don't take scripture out of context, but this one stopped me in my tracks.
I am learning that the desert is a place where God meets me, to shape and mold me to be His instrument. He shows me His sufficiency and is giving me the opportunity to draw closer to Him and to choose to be more faithful to Him.
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
Remember how the Lord you God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
This really spoke to me today. It is about motherhood as a mission field from the Desiring God Blog by a contributor named Rachel.
Here is an excerpt:
Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Motherhood provides you with an opportunity to lay down the things that you cannot keep on behalf of the people that you cannot lose. They are eternal souls, they are your children, they are your mission field.
But I’d like to challenge you to look at it differently. Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now. Cheerfully wipe the nose for the fiftieth time today. Make dinner again for the people who don’t like the green beans. Laugh when your plans are thwarted by a vomiting child. Lay yourself down for the people here with you, the people who annoy you, the people who get in your way, the people who take up so much of your time that you can’t read anymore. Rejoice in them. Sacrifice for them. Gain that which you cannot lose in them.
It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.
God loves the little offerings. Given in faith, that plate of PB&J’s will feed thousands. Given in faith, those presents on Christmas morning will bring delight to more children than you can count. Offered with thankfulness, your work at home is only the beginning. Your laundry pile, selflessly tackled daily, will be used in the hands of God to clothe many. Do not think that your work does not matter. In God’s hands, it will be broken, and broken, and broken again, until all who have need of it have eaten and are satisfied. And even then, there will be leftovers.
Here is an excerpt:
Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Motherhood provides you with an opportunity to lay down the things that you cannot keep on behalf of the people that you cannot lose. They are eternal souls, they are your children, they are your mission field.
But I’d like to challenge you to look at it differently. Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now. Cheerfully wipe the nose for the fiftieth time today. Make dinner again for the people who don’t like the green beans. Laugh when your plans are thwarted by a vomiting child. Lay yourself down for the people here with you, the people who annoy you, the people who get in your way, the people who take up so much of your time that you can’t read anymore. Rejoice in them. Sacrifice for them. Gain that which you cannot lose in them.
It is easy to think you have a heart for orphans on the other side of the world, but if you spend your time at home resenting the imposition your children are on you, you do not. You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time. You will never make any difference there if you cannot be at peace here. You cannot have a heart for missions, but not for the people around you. A true love of the gospel overflows and overpowers. It will be in everything you do, however drab, however simple, however repetitive.
God loves the little offerings. Given in faith, that plate of PB&J’s will feed thousands. Given in faith, those presents on Christmas morning will bring delight to more children than you can count. Offered with thankfulness, your work at home is only the beginning. Your laundry pile, selflessly tackled daily, will be used in the hands of God to clothe many. Do not think that your work does not matter. In God’s hands, it will be broken, and broken, and broken again, until all who have need of it have eaten and are satisfied. And even then, there will be leftovers.
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