Finally a Post!!

Somehow with being so busy in my summer classes, I have gotten behind in posting anything on this blog. I've been in New Orleans 2 or 3 days a week for clinicals at Children's Hospital, and the other days I have I'm either studying like crazy (since we have a test every week) or in class. My final is Monday, though, so hopefully I'll get to catch up after that!

I think I will end up with a 92 in my Pediatrics class. Unfortunately, I need a 93 to get an A. So I probably won't have an A, but I'll come close.

I have a cold right now and I have a bad headache and I can barely breathe. It doesn't really help me study for my final too well!! I'm also really achy from an especially strenuous workout I did on Wednesday.... It makes me kind of nervous to be sick and achy at the same time, especially considering that there are numerous Swine Flu patients at Children's Hospital! I'm sure I don't have it (no fever or anything), but it definitely makes me stop and carefully assess my symptoms!! haha

I really loved my pediatrics clinical experience, and I received a huge complement from my instructor yesterday in my end-of-the-semester evaluation. He told me that he thinks I do really well working under pressure! He said that if someone came to him and asked for a recommendation for an ICU nurse from our current nursing class (with 43 students) he would recommend me without hesitation! That was so encouraging after my past bad experience with instructors who like to intimidate their students. I really needed a teacher who was confident in my abilities. Since failing, I have had a hard time finding confidence if I make even the tiniest of mistakes--because that was why my teacher failed me (an automatic "D" because she wasn't happy with me)! But this teacher was great. Even when I had a bad day, he just took me aside and said, "We all have bad days, I know you will do better next time because you are a good nurse."

Praise the Lord, He has been soo good to me! He never fails to amaze me with His grace toward His children. I was laying in bed Wednesday night trying to fall asleep, and absolutely terrified of going to clinicals the next day. When I failed, it was on the last day of clinicals, so the last day of clinicals always makes me nervous. (If I were to fail again, I would be kicked out of nursing school--for seven years!) Suddenly a song popped into my head. It says, "Jesus' blood never failed me yet...He won't fail me yet." I knew everything would be okay. And it was!! :)

Finished with finals.... :)

So I don't have much time but I wanted to say how happy I am to be finished with finals!! I didn't do as well in my main nursing class as I expected. I had a really high B the whole semester but the final was a killer and I made an 84.2 (I needed an 85 to get a B). So I basically had the highest C possible. :( However in Nursing 440 (Nursing Research) I was expecting a B, but got an A instead!! I did much better on the final than I expected. :) So that was encouraging!

But I'm tired--my sister and I just finished packing up our apartment we lived in for the past year. We are going to be moving back home with our parents. It's been convenient to not have to drive an hour every day, but the way things are working out now it will be a lot better to live at home. Plus, I've missed my family a whole lot. Just being able to see them on the weekends has been a big adjustment for our close family. I will be glad to be around for my little brothers and sister.

Now I'm finished with the apartment but I'm at home packing my suitcase for an impromptu trip to Austin to visit our grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. :D I'm so excited! Because of nursing school I haven't gotten to go to Texas for almost 2 years!! So it will be wonderful to see my extended family again. :) Gotta go pack and then get some sleep--hopefully I'll post more soon!

Blessings Innumerable

I've been needing to write on here for weeks.... Life just kind of runs by me and I forget how much I need to write. Writing is definitely my outlet! But I've been kept so busy with nursing school that I don't even feel like I have a minute to think sometimes.

I have been wondering again the past few days why God led me to get a bachelor's RN degree when I wanted to take the shorter route so much and finish with my ASN in two years. *sigh* I can't even begin to say how much I hate school. More and more every single day I'm in it. I think it's really because right now I'm so bored with what I'm doing. I've been doing the same thing for almost a year now (because that teacher failed me last semester), and I'm just really tired of it all.

The Lord has been so close to me over the past few months, though, and I know I wouldn't trade that for anything. I just wish that somehow I would be able to take joy in what I'm doing. I'm about to start my obsetrics/pediatrics rotation, though, and even though that is the hardest class, I'm looking so forward to it! It's truly what I love to do, and I think that it will be good for me to have a more enjoyable season. I definitely want to eventually end up doing pediatrics. I don't understand it, but for some reason I'm always able to work with the kids in our section of the hospital better than any of the nurses I work with. They just can't stand to have a baby for a patient. But I'm actually disappointed if I work and there are no children that day!!

Right now I'm at a good friend's house over spring break, holding her new baby and just loving it. What a joy it is to see my best friends having children! They are so precious. I love every minute of it.

Studies in Grace

My nursing classes are really keeping me busy, so I don't know how much I will be able to post on here. But at least they are going better this semester.

Last semester was the worst semester I have ever experienced. My nursing teacher gave me a "D" in the class for almost making a few mistakes on the last day of clinicals. [It is difficult to explain her reasoning unless you understand nursing. Some nurses have one method of doing things, and others have another method. I did things by a method taught to me by other nurses. My teacher doesn't like that method however, so she is making me repeat the semester.] I--and every nursing student/nurse I have talked to (except my instructor and the nursing director)--feel that the reasons my teacher gave me an "unsatisfactory" grade were not sufficient grounds for failure. So I have really been struggling with accepting her decision. I feel like I don't deserve to go through the things I have been through with this. I am a good student; I was doing well in the class before. The remaining three weeks of that class last semester seemed to me like living in a nightmare. It only happened before in my worst dreams that I would ever even come close to failing a nursing class. Why would God let something like that happen to me? It was humbling to a point I had never been humbled before. All of my self-assurance was stripped away, and I could only cling to God. I know now that I will never get through nursing school without Him. If I fail again, I am not allowed back into the nursing program.

It is not like I was trying before to do it without Him, but I didn't know what it meant to have to completely rely upon His grace. "...My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." (I Corinthians 12:9) Without Him, I am nothing. Sometimes I tend to forget that, and try to do it all in my own power.

In addition to all of the school struggles, I have been really struggling to overcome a lot of physical weaknesses lately. Over the past few months I have been sick with sinus infections, pneumonia, and (almost daily) severe headaches (which is terrible, as any nursing student will understand, because I can't study with these headaches!). So I am really nothing but weak! I know that when pass through these trials with victory, it will be only because of His marvelous grace.

However, last Friday I made a 98 on my nursing exam--which covered the very material my teacher failed me for! I still have a year of nursing school left, but I know that with His grace I can make it through it. But without Him, I will certainly fall.

Through all of this, I feel that the Lord has been opening up my heart to new things I have never known. He is leading me every step of the way, and I can say with confidence that I have never felt so content in my life. I have no idea where He is leading me, but I can feel that each step I take is a sure step as He is guiding me.

Lamentations 3:22-23~"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."

Why Here?

I spent most of the day today reading news articles. The situation in Africa right now tears my heart apart. There are people dying in Zimbabwe for lack of food. I read of people who are praying for berries to grow so they will have something to eat. This one article really struck me, especially the picture. I had a good Christmas this year, but at times I felt that I couldn't really enjoy it. The entire day, I kept looking at all my gifts, thinking of this one picture, and almost crying as I thought, I have so much!! I wished I could share it with these people. Next year, I think that I will ask not for gifts, but donations in my name. My grandmother gave a donation to Heifer International in my name. The e-mail they sent me said that they had sent a flock of geese to a poor African family.

For some reason, I love Africa with all of my heart. Some of my favorite people are from Africa. I have at least a dozen friends from there. As I read of the thousands of people in Zimbabwe who are dying of cholera (which is so easily treated!) I long so much to go there. Why must I be here, in America, when I long to be working in Africa or India? I want to hold the hurting, and I want to be with the poor. I can't forget how my African friends have begged me to go to their countries and bring medicines to their people. I want so much to bring them medicines and show them the love of Jesus. So many of them are dying without even hearing His name.

And I think of the stories that I have heard from missionaries I know in Bolivia.  There are 2,000 street kids in one city alone.  The political situation in the country results in much rioting and many strikes, leaving people without transportation and often unable to get food.  Cocaine is the country's biggest crop.  Children as young as five are addicted to drugs and to sniffing glues.  HIV/AIDS and TB are common, and not many are treated.  I would love to go there and work with the children of Bolivia some day, and tell them about a Man who died for them.   

Why must I be here?

Lessons

Wow, I'm on a writing streak! Two posts in one day. Must be a record! I got in one of my old writing moods tonight (I don't get them too much during school....) and I just had to stay up and write this. So I thought I'd post it. I'll explain more of the background in a few days. For now, I'll just say that November has been the worst month of my life. This semester was difficult, but it was going well until about a month ago. Then everything I'd worked for came crashing down around me.

These past few weeks have been the hardest of my life. I have been humbled more than I ever wished to be. Humility doesn't come easily, especially when you struggle with pride as much as I do. In the middle of all the heartache, I just kind of collapsed. The past few weeks I’ve been sitting on the couch, with my lip eternally stuck out, pouting to God and hating the world. Why God? Why does life have to be so hard? Why can’t I just be in heaven with You? Why do I have to go through hardships?

Then I began to realize. What if Jesus had felt this way? He left heaven to suffer here on earth. I long for heaven, but I have never tasted its joys. Jesus knew all about heaven’s joys. He was the King of heaven, who came to be humiliated on earth. His entire life on earth was about suffering. Yet He did it for joy. “…who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame…” (Heb. 12:2) That is something I’m just now grasping: how our suffering actually can be for joy. The other day as I was listening to a song on the radio, I realized that my main problem with this whole situation is that I haven’t been focused on hope. What hope we have in Christ!! I have not experienced anything even close to what other people have experienced in the way of hardships. Compared to Job, I have lost nothing at all. Yet Job still fell down and worshipped his Creator. What a greater, more glorifying thing it would be if I were to take hold of God and hold on so, so tightly during my hard times.

I have realized that it is okay for me to not be okay. God gives us strength in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9), and somehow He has designed it so that when we fade away to nothing, He is even more glorified. But it is not okay for me to sit and feel sorry for myself, to not read my Bible, and to sap the strength from all those around me. I need to get my strength from God alone. Yes it is okay to have Christians who share our burdens. That is what Christian community is all about. But it is wrong for me to rely on them more than God. And somehow in this weakness, I’ve gotten further from God rather than closer to Him. I’ve allowed myself to believe that since I was depressed, I didn’t need to read my Bible. That because I didn’t really feel like praying, it was okay to not pray. After all, other people are praying for me, right?! That should be enough. Surely God will understand. But why in the world would I not want to sit and pour my heart out to God? He is my best Friend, my Husband, and the only thing in the universe that matters. Oh my heart breaks to think of my complete weakness! I don’t even have to strength to cling to Him when I need Him the most. What a mighty God we serve, that He loves us in spite of our weaknesses.