Yes, I am blogging about work yet again (so if you're tired of hearing about work, read no further)... Recently that seems to be all that's happening in life, so it's a little bit hard to blog about anything else. In fact, I thought about how much I've been working lately and decided to do a little bit of math for curiosity's sake. Here are some figures for you:
On days that I work, I spend 4% of the day in the car, 54% at the hospital, 25% sleeping, and 17% at home awake.
Last week I spent 57% of my days working, which, by hours, is really about 31% of my week (which might not seem like a significant figure, but it sure feels like it).
In any case, I wanted to write specifically about what happened on Friday with work.
Friday morning I woke up feeling sick to my stomach and with a headache. I was highly tempted to call in sick, especially since it would be my 4th day working that week. But it's odd what stopped me from doing so, and I believe it was a God thing, silly as it may seem.
When I woke up, I had been dreaming. I can't recall exactly what happened in my dream, except for this: Something unpleasant had happened, and my last thought as I looked at a piece of paper with some significance was, "This is your opportunity. You can use this to witness for God, to show his goodness and to be a blessing."
With that as my waking thought, I struggled with what to do. I didn't feel good, so it didn't seem likely to me that anything about work could be good, but I couldn't ignore the thought that maybe God had given me that dream as an encouragement that today I could be a blessing.
I decided to take my chances and go to work. Thankfully, I started feeling much better as the day went on, although the headache kept recurring.
I'm so glad that I went to work on Friday; it was the best day I can remember having in a long, long time. There were definitely challenges, but it was one of the first days in a long time that I can remember specifically feeling God's presence with me. Not to mention, I had a lot of the same patients I had had earlier this week, and almost all of them had told me by the end of the day that they were glad to have me as their nurse, and that they appreciated what I'd done. I truly felt like a blessing; I felt like something I had done made more of a difference than just handing out medications, which has been a rare feeling lately.
Beyond having a good day with my patients, I also had a good day with my co-workers. It's funny, a lot of them didn't realize that I was leaving until very recently. On Friday, I got to eat lunch before 3 o'clock in the afternoon, which was nice. I ate with Tabitha and Tisha, and they started asking me all kinds of questions about Africa. It was really fun; I haven't had a chance to really talk to any of my co-workers lately, and I've missed it. I really love the people I work with, and I'll be sad to leave them. They wanted to get my updates while I'm gone, so I'm going to leave my blog address for them. It was really nice to feel like they actually care what happens to me after I leave, especially since I haven't been working with them long, and I'm not exactly the most outgoing, easy-to-befriend person in the world.
Praise God for silly dreams. I now have 3 days left of work, and I don't know what they'll bring, but I hope and pray that whatever happens, I can feel like God is with me.
2 comments:
ah work its the life :)
Kristin, I am sure that in the mission field, just as here in the states, we will have days when it is hard for us to go to work/clinic/hospital. There will be times when we feel that God is not even with us. We must remember that God has a larger plan than we can see and that we are part of it in an individual way that God values as indispensable. (see my blog) Another insight that I have learned here at training is that when we have a purpose for going through hardship, we will have the determination to do a whole lot more than we could do without a purpose. I have decided to keep in the forefront of my mind that the purpose of our mission is to see these people in heaven. May God bless you my sister! Always trust in Him!
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