Don't Miss This Moment

I sincerely thought my niece just turned 7.

I have been telling everyone glowing stories about my amazing "seven year old" niece. Turns out...she turned eight in March. How did that even happen? She is learning violin now. And reading. And she got her ears pierced and she is gorgeous just like her mama. I look at her and can't believe she is already so grown-up. She lives about 5 hours away, so I don't get to see her as often as I'd like, but I love spending time with her. Today, we are going on a "date". She wants to go to the mall and use a coupon for Claire's (which is every newly-ear-pierced 8 year old's dream), and I took a half day at work to spend the day with her. I look at her and my precious nephew Benjamin, who is battling a severe form of epilepsy every day, and my 2 year old chubby-cheeked nephew Beckham and I just want to freeze time. Beckham went around giving us all goodnight kisses the other night, and I wanted to just stop time. I don't want to miss these moments. Beck got around to everyone except his new Uncle Drew and looked at his mama and said "And Dwew?" and then went around to give him a goodnight kiss too. I melted. These are precious moments.

"bloom where you're planted"

all of our nursing graduating class has pretty much hit the panic button. when the hospitals announced they were taking very few of us new grads, i think everyone panicked. we figured jobs would be a shoe-in...the easy part. we were wrong. i think we're all scared that we just went to school for nothing, racked up tons of debt, and now will be fighting to get out of it for the next ten years. it scares me too. i am going to be about 30k in student loans (an amount, which amazingly, is pennies compared to some of my classmates, who are in 75-150k!), which is not awful for a program that costs approximately 20k a year. it's not a fun feeling. my husband is very calm and has formulated a brilliant plan that involves us getting OUT of debt in about three years. (i might add, my plan was really good too. except it involved new dresses and going to the carribean, so he won. but it still sounded pretty fun.) i've had to step back and stop worrying. it's not as if God was watching and suddenly went, "OHHH dear, i had no clue THAT was going to happen!" He knows. i'll get a job. it's just a phase. a weird, uncomfortable phase, but one that is teaching me more and more trust.

this whole year has been a phase. adjusting to marriage, finishing school, plenty of crazy life changes that have pushed me and grown me. i'm really thankful. i look back over my "single" college years, when i was free to go out and spend my money on eating out and margaritas with the girls, and staying up too late. it was a phase too. and yesterday when i was out with the girls (sans margaritas!), around 5pm, i just wanted to go home. i miss my husband when i'm not with him. this is a new phase, and i wouldn't trade my "single life" for a moment of it. this is a new phase, a beautiful, crazy, wonderful phase of life. It involves laundry and grocery shopping and budgets and date nights. I've heard girls say they didn't know how to adjust to marriage because they missed their free time. They lost their "identity". I say, either they didn't have a very good start to begin with, or they had a husband who didn't really care. It's sad when women don't know how to thrive in marriage, and sad when husbands don't know how to help them grow within in. it's not stifling. it's freeing. I've been really blessed with a husband who inspires me to do well in my company, my schoolwork, my hobbies. I've traded glamour magazines and margaritas in for dishes and 9pm bedtime and 5 day workweeks. and God is so good. Marriage is great. Life is peaceful and messy. God is still good, still sovereign over all of it!

Lady Gaga and All Her Little Monsters

Let it be known that I don't condone Lady Gaga. I've danced to her music and I listen to her first album while at the gym, but I definitely don't think her recent inappropriate outfits and very sexualized music are appropriate for anyone to listen to. I would never let my children listen to any song other than "Just Dance", and I change the channel when her barely-there outfits are plastered all over our television set.

But I watched a recent interview with her on Good Morning America, and I was sort of blown away. Not by her music, because it's highly sexual overtones were definitely over the line for family viewing, but by her interview. I think it was her eyes. I have never seen such sad eyes on someone. For being someone who supports people's opinions that they were "born this way", she sure doesn't seem very happy in her own skin. Recent allegations of a facial restructuring also make me think she is really not that happy with the girl under all the crazy outfits. She is a very pretty lady, from what I could see at the beginning of her career, and it's a little sad that she is trying to push the boundaries so much. The second thing that hit me was the crowd. GMA said it was the "largest crowd" their summer concert series (which has seen the likes of Brad Paisley and Keith Urban) they have ever seen. In history. And a crowd it was...stretching all the way to Times Square allegedly, and sweeping all the way through the streets. And I watched the cameras pan all through the crowd, full of teens and adults and even children dressed in gay pride tee shirts and pro-homosexual gear...people cheering and clinging to what she was offering them. They looked at her like she was a god. Broken, hurting people reaching out for something. Anything.

And I felt suddenly, sickeningly, guilty.

Millions of hurting people are clinging to Lady Gaga because she is filling a void. She, as twisted and volatile as her theology may be, has connected with these hurting teens and adults and people who don't fit in anywhere. People I don't hang out with. People who rarely even cross my mind.

Jesus would have hung out with these people.

He would have offered them, not a flimsy, sexual replacement for Hope, but the real thing.

I don't believe in Lady Gaga, but the fact is, millions of people believe in her message of hope, because the church, myself included, haven't offered them the actual thing. It's convicting and painful and true.

I hope Lady Gaga finds a truth she can truly cling to, one that will fill the void in her eyes and the bigger one in her heart. I truly hope she can find the person she wants to be and make a difference in the lives of the people who follow her. But moreover, I hope I can be part of the change that fills that void in the lives of people around me...with Jesus. WIth real Hope, a true future. Starting with our neighbor. Bob (not his real name), a broken and sad man who lives across the street from us...who is looking for something he hasn't found yet at a church where he says "east meets west in the teaching of Buddha and Jesus", but is genuinely being cared for by the people at that church. I haven't stepped up to care for him. I need to. I need to bring him dinner and my husband and I need to continue to show kindness to him for no reason.

So Lady Gaga, this post is for you. You may not understand what you're looking for, but I hope you find Him soon.

THIS girl...

...is officially done with nursing school!

Those words felt like they would never come from my mouth. The past five years have stretched me and grown me, often in very difficult and painful ways, and I cannot wait to move on with my life! I'm thankful for nursing school, because I grew up while I was in the program. I became a more compassionate, mature, professional person. I became a nurse. I'm grateful for my parents who never stopped believing I could make it, and my family and my husband who never let me quit. And to my teachers who found a nurse somewhere inside that terrified 19-year-old who started the program in 2007. Mostly to the Lord who got me through sleepless nights, patients dying, crying myself to sleep, endless exams, and Who is responsible for all my success.

1 Kings 8:56
Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised! Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses.

Why I'm thankful I didn't get my perfect job.

This past week, I was definitely crushed to find out that the position I had been promised, had been told I would be the forerunner for, and for which I have been working extremely hard for, was not going to be filled because of budget cuts. I barely held back tears as I left the hiring office. This position was supposed to be a "shoe-in"...easy...well-paying...perfect. In an instant, it was gone.

To be honest, as I was wrapping up last week's clinical week, I felt pretty purpose-less. All the effort I had been directing to this job seemed very non-consequential now. I was pretty frustrated with the unit, with myself for letting myself get my hopes up before I signed the papers, and with the Lord for what I perceived as "taking away" what I wanted. (I am sure the Lord was less than thrilled with my temper tantrum).

So this Sunday, when my pastor asked for volunteers in our church's disability ministry, I must confess my initial thoughts were less than holy. "I'm a nurse", I thought, "I should be working in a high stress surgical unit, not volunteering at the church". (I know, I was definitely less-than-thrilled with my own heart's attitude).

And of course, the Lord pretty much smacked me upside the head and nudged my heart to open up to the idea that He is going to use me here. And that maybe, that perfect job was taken away in order to allow me more time to work with the precious little ones at my church. Precious kids like my own niece who has severe autism, and my nephew who has severe epilepsy.

How humbled I was.

How good the Lord is to move us towards where we need to be.

Even if it means my "perfect" job wasn't so perfect after all.

So here goes...this new venture, of other's centered-ness. Of loving where I am. Of deciding that volunteering just may change my heart more than that ideal job. Of offering my schedule up to being open to serve.

What no one tells you about nursing school...

They tell you it's going to be hard...

They tell you patients will die and patients will live and you will walk through both daily...

They tell you that you will have nights that you will cry for hours...

They tell you that there will be days so full of joy and hope...

And the feeling of accomplishment you have is overwhelming...

But they don't tell you...
No one tells you that the last term is emotional. bittersweet. stressful. fulfilling. exhausting. No one tells you that the people who have walked beside you for four years will become like your family. you cant imagine your life without all of them. No one tells you how exhausted working back to back long shifts will make you. No one tells you how stressful it is to get everything done to graduate. No one tells you how emotional everything becomes. i'm so happy to be done, but graduation hit me today, and i realized how much nursing school has shaped me into who i am. No one tells you that it will make you compassionate, that you will understand the people around you more and more. No one tells you how it feels to find out your patient died. No one tells you what it's like to have to tell a patient's family that something went wrong. No one prepares you.

No one will tell you that you'll meet the impoverished.

The broken.

The amazing.

The uncomfortable.

The forgotten.

it's been all consuming for almost five years. it's a lot of mixed emotions. i'm happy but also sad, and exhausted all at once. No one tells you that.

We've finally almost made it.

those girls.

my husband and i can't help but snicker a little bit when my grandma watches jeopardy. we watch it too, but she always comments on the weight of the contestants. it's funny, because of the tone she uses and her totally indignant comments, but it's sobering too.

because i do it too.

you know those girls, right? the ones you see in wal mart or downtown. girls overweight, with heavy eyeliner, wearing less-than-modest clothes. they don't dress in style, they probably never finished high school...we think all these things. they are the

teen mom.

the girl who sleeps around.

the one who does drugs.

and i know i have made those comments too. i have sat in starbucks, sipping five dollar coffee, wearing designer jeans, holding my coach bag... and making snide comments about the girls who clearly have no concept of fashion or style. i cringe just writing it. but i do.

maybe their sin is evident. maybe they slept around in high school and that's why they are toting around a toddler or two. maybe they did drugs and that's why they're missing some teeth. maybe they are promiscuous, and that's why they show so much skin.

and i am no better.

just because we, as a society have become quite good at covering up our "white collar sins"...sins like gossip, slander, lies...it doesn't mean they are not there. and i may be well dressed and have my hair done and have a good job or wear expensive shoes..but it doesn't matter if my heart is still sinful.

moreover....those girls? the ones we are so quick to judge?

i see some of them in the hospital and their stories are not as they seem.

it's a shattered heart behind eyeliner.

it's an eating disorder behind twenty extra pounds.

it's a date rape victim behind the missing teeth.

a struggling single mother behind the two toddlers.

and it may be a homeless teen behind the "unstylish" clothes.

humbled?

me too.

i am each and every day that i meet these girls in the hospital. every shift is a parade of patients, each one, i am certain, sent from the Lord to smack me over the head with humility. these girls have the whole world pointing fingers and whispering about them. they already don't feel loved, whole, or beautiful. and the last thing they need is me adding to the noise.

with a little help from my friends

it's about time to introduce you to some of my blogging friends and their incredible journeys. i am so thankful to know such amazing people!

Addi is one of my dearest, most inspiring friends. She is on a journey of recovery from an eating disorder, and she shares her eloquent and inspirational thoughts on her blog, along with fun pictures and her impeccable fashion sense. I met Addi a few years ago, and am so thankful the Lord has given me such an amazing friend. We have been through a lot together!

Kelly is currently fighting NF, and is blogging about her fight against tumors. Kell is such a beautiful and strong person, and she always inspires me to have a better attitude and find joy in the small things.

Malerie is the wife of one of Drew's close friends, Kevin, and she is truly a Godly woman and a dear friend. They are journeying down the road of adoption and Drew and I could not be more happy for them! You can read their story at her blog, and also help them raise the funds to bring their little one home.

a brand new season

I am sure a lot of people cannot imagine why i would be thankful for my recent eye surgery, but i am. i firmly believe that God brings the good and bad into our lives for His glory and to shape us into a people confident in his goodness. was it terrifying? yes. was it inconvenient? yes. but just a few days after the surgery, i was able to see already that God had carefully shaped and created this time of purpose for me.

He has brought me into a brand new season of being. being on bedrest for weeks meant

i couldn't go.

i couldnt do.

i couldnt accomplish.

i had to depend on my husband to clean and cook and dress me and help me in and out of bed. i had to depend on my family and friends to go anywhere. i had to work in short bursts of time while my eye cooperated. i couldnt even read. i could watch tv with one eye on my iPhone for about thirty minutes at a time. you might say, for someone as busy as i am, this was torture. i would say

for someone as achievement driven as me, this was torture.

i was forced to find fulfillment in other things that what i was doing. ouch. and so, God chipped away at the things i was holding onto, at me being a perfect housekeeper, a perfect employee, a perfect manager, a perfect wife. and He said rest. and He said I am sufficient. and so i did.

and i began to see how overloaded i was making myself. i have not had a single asthma or heart fibrillation since my surgery. i have quit my day job. i have watched God provide a way for me to work from home with my company so its easier on my health. i have watched Him provide financially so my company is bringing in twice as much as my day job. i began taking Fridays off, and doing something with my girlfriends, just because. my best friend called me and after i took an hour to listen to her, said "thanks for just listening. thanks for taking the time to bless me with that". time. i never had it before. i have time to cook, time to grocery shop, time to iron my husband's shirts. i almost started crying while i was ironing for him, because i have never made time to do that before. i run three times a week, but i put on the five pounds that my doctor wanted me to, for my low blood pressure. i feel healthy. i feel happy. a few friends have commented on how peaceful i seem, how much more joyful. and i know it's true. i smile more. i read my bible daily because i make time for it. i feel joy when i run. in my book club, we were discussing inner beauty, and how it flows from a woman who is confident in God, and who is peaceful and restful.

i don't think the word "restful" has ever been used in conjunction with me before, but i want to be that woman.

at rest.

confident in a good, gracious and beautiful Savior.

at peace.

joyful.

to japan with love.

the burnout.

it's no secret that nursing school is a world all it's own. its stress and workload ensure that any semblance of a social life, relationships, or community are shattered. it's a cruel awakening the first year. i remember dissolving into tears many, many nights, sure that i would either perish or fail out of the program. while other friends were in college, i felt that i was immersed in a whole different dimension. my first year, i was in the hospital twice, once for two week long pneumonia. the second year, hospitalized for my heart and asthma complications, and for a bizarre eye mass. this year? tore my ACL and broke my meniscus, then my right eye went blind and i had emergency surgery. to say i set the record for most hospital visits in nursing school would be an understatement.

i founded my own company in 2009, and before i knew it, it was actually generating income. i found my love of writing and organization was complete in being a manager and publicist. but i was still in nursing school, and i couldn't do it all. i found myself really discouraged that i had already gotten so far in school, and had found a whole different career. i didn't want to choose, but juggling everything was becoming crippling. this past term, i was finding my rhythm, becoming a strong nurse, but still having trouble finding real joy in being a nurse. i felt guilty that i had taken out student loans and deep down, dreaded my shift each day. all i wanted to do is work from home and just be done with all of the late nights and early mornings and migraines and aching feet. that is, until my right eye went blind, and i was watching everything slip away in an instant.

my surgery gave me a new joy in what i am doing. my company is doing well, and is allowing me to quit my day job and be fully self-employed. it's freeing and will allow me to be home two days a week, working from home! i am eager to get back to the hospital. i can't wait to see the patients, to be with my fellow nurses. i found myself missing it. and i know that was the Lord confirming that i am where i need to be. He has granted me joy in spite of everything. i'm so thankful.

God never leaves us vacant.

(In)Courage Guest Blogger

I'm very happy to announce I will be guest posting on (In)Courage! Date to be announced, but I'm so honored to be a part of this amazing community of women and their stories.

a look back at fistula.

When small girls are thrust into poverty, often things get so ugly, that they are sold to husbands who are much older by parents who have reached desperation. For some, their parents never wanted them, so they grasp for the last shred of hope they have: an arranged marriage to what looks like a prosperous man. What it turns into is a glamourized type of child abuse, where ten and twelve year old children suffer sexual abuse at the hands of men who have multiple wives, concubines, and partners. These precious girls are exposed to diseases, but more importantly, often become pregnant as young as ten or eleven. Since their bodies are not ready for childbirth, these girls endure horrific obstructive labor, where the baby often dies. What the little girls are left with is a obstetric condition called a fistula, where they are unable to prevent incontinence. They become the unwanted. The outcasts. The untouchable. Imagine it.

Across the world, there are ten and twelve year old girls huddled on dirty sidewalks. Sleeping in their own urine. Left to die an outcast, with no children, shunned by the 'husband' who proferred them such wealth and prosperity.

In Ethiopia, there are 100,000 women and little girls suffering from fistulas. There are 2 million women in the world suffering from fistulas right now. And all this is fixable. There is a hospital in Ethiopia who offers these women a simple medical procedure that will give them back their lives. Do you know how much it costs to give a ten year old her life back?

$450.00.

I was blown away. I want to be a nurse, and potentially a doctor someday. I have been enthralled by the new show Hopkins on ABC, where medical students work through the highs and lows of residency for the audience of America. And I realized how quickly our priorities can go awry. I want to be a doctor. Why? Is it the glamour? Is it because I want to help people? I heard a message from Louie Giglio recently where he asks "Have you had an encounter with Jesus? Have you REALLY?" I realized we can say all the right things...I can stream podcasts, I can read through my bible in a year. I can go to church three times a week and raise my hands in worship. But has God moved me? Has He shaken me to my core? I think that maybe He is working on it. Because when I read the stories of these girls in Ethiopia, girls who I might have been friends with when I was ten...I got uncomfortable. I got restless. I realized that if I become a doctor, I would HAVE to go to help those girls. I would have no option. That's how moved I was. My friend Daley Hake recently posted a blog about how we "are not what we do". He, a brilliant photographer, explained how he prays to be 'more than a brand', that he wants to be remembered for MORE. I want to be a nurse/doctor. But I want God to move me deep within. I want to sense His presence in the eyes of those girls as they get their lives back. I want God to overflow from me at my work. I want everything I do to be filtered through the realization that God is big enough. That I am not what I do. But that what I do must be overflowing from an Encounter with a Saviour.

So I will watch.

I will wait.

I will let God move me.

And as I sleep tonight, I will remember that across the ocean, a little girl in Ethiopia sleeps too, waiting for an encounter with her Saviour too.

Watching for God. Maybe He's closer than I think.


"God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives.
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.
God is in the debris of wasted opprotunity and lives

and God is with us if we are with them."
-Bono

Marriage is about saying I Don't...

I said "I do" to my handsome and thoughtful groom almost three months ago. feels much longer. he is truly my best friend. we stay up way too late talking and laughing lately, which makes getting up for work quite the episode. we have recently walked through a rough few weeks with my surgery, but he has remained calm and collected, and has never left my side, vigilantly giving me eyedrops every hour and even getting me a pirate bear to match me, and bedazzling my ugly eye dr glasses. he is truly a giving kind of guy...always looking out for me and helping me with stuff around the house so i dont over exert my eye.

i have learned that marriage isn't about saying i do as much as it is saying "i dont". its dying to self. i am learning to say that...

i don't need to be right all the time. most of the time, i'm not, and it's not worth fighting just to make myself feel more important and correct.

i don't need to assume my schedule in nursing school, as hectic as it is, is more important than his.

i don't need to store up ammunition for arguments so i can fling them at appropriate times for leverage.

i don't get to whine and complain about the budget that keeps us on track for student loans, because in truth, my husband "gets" the money aspect more than me.

i don't get to be selfish in marriage. it's the fastest way to kill a relationship.

i said "i do" on our wedding day, but i i really learn to say "i don't" every day.

"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" Gal 2:20