The Hunger

All my life I've been hungry. Well, soul hungry that is. Ever since I can remember. So, all my life I've been trying to fill this hunger. It started with trying to fill it with my parent's love. Coming from a broken a home, that wasn't so easy to do. So when I still felt hungry I started trying to fill it with food, literally. I ate and ate and ate and got quite big for my young age. When I saw that still didn't satisfy me, I tried to fill that void with men. Bad relationships that always started and ended in the same place, leaving me still hungry. So eventually I stopped trying to fill the void. I started ignoring it, starving it. That's when life became really dark for me. Anger, bitterness, depression, attempted suicides. My life definitely wasn't reflecting what God truly created me for. I had built a wall up against society, against love, against Him. That hunger, that void that I had felt all my life, was my need for love. My need for acceptance, forgiveness, and faith. Now, I wish I could say that once I accepted Christ that emptiness was filled, but it wasn't. I believed in God, I said I had faith in God, but did I really? I had faith, to a manly extent. I trusted God like I trusted man and in reality, that wasn't a whole lot. After a life of betrayal, how am I suppose to learn to completely and utterly trust a God that I cannot see? That question alone is completely doubting God.
In just a couple short weeks God has been working majorly in me. He has been stirring up all sorts of emotions to try and remove the clutter that has been darkening my soul. However, without me completely surrendering every little thing, I will never fully trust God. A friend told me that I needed to be vulnerable with God, and he is absolutely right. When I prayed, it was always in the general sense. "God heal my hurt, God release me from these chains, God take away my anxiety." I would commonly say, "You know me God, take away what it is that keeps me from you." Not a horrible prayer, but not a truthful one, not a vulnerable one. Last night i started praying for specifics, "God, take away mu anxieties stemming from a lack of trust for you! God, retrain my way of thinking that I am not worthy of your love because of my sexual sins!" Well, prayers like that continued. I went through just about every bad memory from birth until now. Praying specifically for healing, wisdom, guidance, patience, and His love. I have never in my life prayed like this before and I'll be honest, it hurt, it really truly hurt. For once I was being completely vulnerable and open with my God. Not one detail that popped in to my head was spared from enthusiastically giving it over to the Lord. I felt like I was being emptied. If you have ever felt like this you know what I mean when I say it is hard. With my history of trust issues, spilling everything one by one before the throne of God hurt me like I had never been hurt before. I cried and screamed like never before (the neighbors probably thought I was being murdered or something). Yet during all this, I felt like God had a magnet hovering above me. This magnet was attracting all of the darkness in my soul. It literally felt like he was extracting everything from me. Then, He began to fill me. Replaced my fears about intimacy, with His promise of His unending love for me. Replacing my trust issues with His history of always staying true. Then the lord literally commanded me to go to bed.
I woke a few hours later with no anxiety, a first for me, I always have some sort of anxiety but God took it. I have realized now that God placed that hunger for me. That hunger is mankind's drive to seek God and to ask Him to fill it. So even though I may have been feeding it nothing but garbage my whole life, I am thankful for that unending hunger. Now the hunger is being filled with light, God's love, mercy, forgiveness, and faithfulness. Now the real journey, the journey God planned for me, can begin.

Gentleness

I thought all the lessons I had learned from Chris and his passing were so obvious but I didn't realize yet another one until Tuesday. Mondays and Tuesdays is when I have my clinical hours at Mercy. These are my favorite days out of the week because I get to practice what I've been taught. I love my patients, each and every one of them, and every week seems to present a new task. However, they usually all have something in common: pain. Whether it's muscle pain, wound pain, fracture pain, etc., they all have it from mild to severe. All to often I see nurses on the floor in a hurry moving thier painful patients to fast, too hard, or doing quick and forceful wound care leaving the patient in tremendous amounts of pain. Now, I know that in some procedures pain is unavoidable, but to what degree? Here is where I owe Chris yet again for such an amazing lesson. Chris had immense leg pain and whenever he was moved in any way, we had to be extremely careful and extremely gentle. It hurt no matter what but slow and steady seemed to less painful than quick and forceful. This has translated in to every patient of mine, especially those with wounds. I absolutely love wound care so I commonly ask for patients with abscesses or ulcers or incisions that require dressing changes. Usually when I enter the room with all my supplies I can see my patients becoming anxious. I always hear about "the nurse before". How painful something was, or how carelessly something was done. I always tell them that I will be as gentle as possible and typically my patients are amazed at how pain free the dressing change was. I realized how much Chris influenced my gentleness when my patient Tuesday asked if I could come back and always do her dressing changes. It was good to hear but it was so great to realize that during such a horrid time, I learned such an amazing lesson that i continually put in to practice. So thank you again Chris for the subtle things you taught me, probably without even knowing it.

Just Wonderful

I'm obviously horrible at updating this thing. Sorry to whoever still follows my blog. So, what's new with me? Well, I can't really say a whole lot! I'm still in school. About halfway though now and though I don't like school itself, I fall in love with nursing more and more each day. For the past two weeks I have had the same patient. This patient has been through a lo in the past few years medically and now she is fighting off a horrid infection among other things. I feel extremely blessed to have her as a patient because she makes me remain humble. No matter how busy I think I am, or hectic things seems to be, her fragile state reminds me to slow down, be gentle, and take my time with her. She is definitely not the kind of patient you can rush. Also, you really have to get her trust and, more importantly, her family's trust. She really reminds me of Chris. I think that's why I feel blessed because I can put the same amount of energy in to her as I did with Chris but this time with a little more knowledge. It's people like her that remind me of why I went in to nursing in the first place and how much I really love this field. I thank God everyday for the opportunity to make a difference in someone's life.
On another note, as of today, I have a job. Yippy! I will be working for macy's. I am very excited for multiple reasons. This is the first job I've ever gotten without my dad's help. I feel like I'm finally growing up! So with school and this new job I imagine I'll be staying pretty busy. Learning to manage my time and budget has been a big lesson for me so far this year, but this year has also been one of the best in a long while. Thanks Jesus for all the doors you have open, and shut. Life is truly wonderful.

Oh Hai :)

It's time for an update! I promise this blog will be more cheerful.
So where to start? Life is pretty much the same, nothing really new and exciting, just super busy with school. A new clinical rotation started this week. Im at Mercy West now and so far I really like it. Working in acute care has really helped me realize what I want to do, and what I really do NOT want to do. I do not want to be a floor nurse, at least not when I'm first starting out. The pace isn't quick enough for me (no offense to any of you floor nurses of course!). So here is my new and almost set-in-stone gameplan: I will be graduating in March (yay!). After I graduate I will be studying to take the NCLEX to become licensed. After that I will either A) work in the prison system or B) work in acute care as an OR nurse (one of the only departments still hiring LVNs in acute care). While working as a LVN I plan on going back to school ASAP to get my RN. Finally, after I am all finished with that, I would like to work in the Emergency Room for a while. I really love it there! It's fast paced. Constant admits and constant discharges. Plus, you see pretty much everything! Also, the adrenaline rush is pretty amazing. All this isn't set in stone obviously but so far, I really think I know where I'm heading.
Which brings me to another thing. It's nice to actually be doing something that I am truly passionate about. I know for an absolute fact that this is what I want to be doing, and will be doing, until I retire. Chris, thanks bud for helping me to find my passion. I just wish you were here so I can share all the fun nursing stories with you. I think you would enjoy them :)
Apart from school, all is going pretty well. Money is still tight but it will be like this for a couple more years at least. I guess its my lesson in truly learning how to budget. All in all, God has been good (when isn't he?) and he has really been my strenght to keep me motivated and going to class despite some anxieties.

Wit's End

Well, I haven't updated in a while. I swear almost all of my new posts start off with a sentence similar to that but its the truth. Blogging isn't so easy these days. Its not that there isn't anything going on, its just I don't know how to put it into words anymore. I suppose trying every once in a while doesn't hurt though.
I just recently got out of a relationship. Ugh. I think I just need to stop getting into them so i don't have to worry about getting out of them. Anyways, this one sort of stumped me. It started out well, real well. It was the first relationship I've ever had where I really put God first and I worked hard to keep Him as the forefront. Do I think that really continuously happened? Probably not, but this was also the first time that I had strict boundaries and stuck to them. I was proud of myself for that. However, on the other end, my efforts aren't the only thing that keeps a relationship intact, and happy. It relies on his efforts as well. This is the part that confused and hurt me. Things were wonderful starting off. Two imperfect people with a passion for God and watching God work in each others lives. Then he started showing possessive and controlling behavior. Luckily I was able to recognize this and talk about it with close friends to make sure it wasn't just me. So I chose to broke it off because I knew where it was heading, all of my other relationships that I got caught up in were controlling ones and I wasn't going to go through that again. Once I broke it off, he showed who he truly was, and I know for sure that I made the right decision. I'll admit, it shook me a little. I honestly thought that it was a relationship God wanted, but obviously not. At least I'm making progress I suppose.
In the midst of all that, relay for life came in to town. This year was tough, not having John or Chris there to support. Its all about hope but I sort of felt hopeless this year. It was still nice to see a community unite for such a worthy cause. And its always wonderful hanging out with the team, we are all so invested in it. Our lives have all been forever changed by cancer, so fighting back isn't really an option, its a requirement. I ended up staying the whole night which surprised me but didn't make it to church.
Which brings me to another point. My attendance is definitely not so great. Last week Realy wore me out, and this week it was panic issues. I can't help but think that's really an excuse though. Satan has a stronghold again, and I know ultimately, that is what's affecting my anxiety and attendance. Ugh. Just for one day I'd like things to be simple and easy but I don't think that is going to happen any time soon. I still have so much to work through and when I slack for just a moment, i feel like I'm racing to get back where I was.
Yesterday I really just wanted to give up. I was so frustrated. So tired of feeling sick, and anxious, and miserable. I wanted to just lay on the floor and not get up, just sit a wallow in my misery for weeks on end. I know I can't do that, and I know I ultimately don't want to but some days whatever is going on (or not going on) in this brain of mine just pushes me to the edge. I can feel my anger getting out of control, one moment i'm sad, the next moment I'm furious. Even now a range of emotions is coming over me like an ever changing mood ring. I just want it to STOP. I think I should end this blog now before I throw up all my thoughts and sorrows into the world wide web.

30 DF Days 1-3

So, Sunday evening my church, The Way Fellowship, started a 30 day fast. This fast is very different from any other that I have done. Instead of fasting solely from food (we will do a food fast the last week) we our fasting from comforts and luxuries that Americans sometimes confuse for necessities. Sunday night we fasted from our beds. Wow. Sleeping on the carpet sucked, majorly. I tossed and turned a lot, I couldn't stay asleep, and my hips were in a tremendous amount of pain. I made it through the whole night but felt horrid in the morning. I couldn't help but feel so much compassion for those who do that every night. In fact, they don't get a carpet to sleep on with comfy pillows and a nice soft comforter. I am so spoiled and blessed that I have a bed to sleep in every night.
The second and third days are fasting from convenience/electricity. I didn't think fasting from electricity would be too bad until I tried finding my pajamas in the dark and going to the bathroom in darkness. It was definitely an eye opener. I also usually sleep with a night light that I went without last night. Once again, I am so blessed to be able to have plenty of light with the flick of a switch.
Today I was going to fast from transportation but found out that the bus schedule stops before I get out of school. So i decided to walk to the store to get my water supply for the day. I only brought exact change with me to see what it feels like to only have enough money for an actual necessity. I really wanted to buy pizza on the way, or candy, etc., but I needed water. So I bought a gallon of water and carried it back home. Even though the store isnt very far, carrying a gallon of water back home was not easy nor fun. It's amazing that everyday children wake up off the ground and walk miles to fetch water in buckets and carry it back home. I am so blessed that I can just walk to my fridge to get water.
Lord, thank you for all these luxuries in my life that I always considered necessities. It's only day 3 and already this fast has started to open my eyes. What an awesome oppertunity.

Just some rambling

It seems like the more I dive into the study I am doing and dive in to the word of God the more I realize that Christianity really does take a lot of courage. Since becoming a difficult, life certainly has not become any easier. In fact, it may in fact actually be more difficult. What I'm saying is, now that I am following God I am so convicted of so many things. Years ago I would have never felt guilt for the things I have done or thought, and I wouldn't have dreamed of changing anything. Now not only do I feel guilty, I have to work extra hard to change patterns that have been dragging me down for half my lifetime. Yet, even on this more difficult path, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It may be hard now, but I know it will pay off. I could throw it all away and take the easy path but all that would do is lead me to destruction. Its just different. Its like I'm waking up from a coma. I can feel again and I'm admitting that at times I really wish I couldn't. My heart breaks so much more often these days. I can't not care anymore, although there are times I really wish I didn't. I don't know what lies ahead but I do know that I am truly changing from the inside out. Its remarkable yet scary. Beautiful yet difficult. I used to look at Christians like cowards; people who were afraid to live their life to the fullest. I realize now that I was completely wrong. I am now living my life to the fullest, taking the biggest risks, and facing my biggest fears. Its hard to describe really, coming from a life full to the brim of sin in to a life full of peace and love. It's definitely a new feeling and a new way of conducting my life.I hope someday, when I have broken my habits and started a new, healthier cycle, that I can share my struggles with kids, teens, young adults, etc., and show them through my mistakes how amazing our God really is. He really does forgive every sin, and He really does heal every wound. Its not easy, I don't think it ever will be, but it's all worth it.