While I'm Waiting

"In hope [Abraham] believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, 'So shall your offspring be.'

"He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

"No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."

~Romans 4:18-21

Abraham chose to trust in God's Word more than he trusted the evidence before his eyes; he chose to lean not on his own understanding, but to trust in God with all of his heart. Abraham made this choice because the unseen God was more real to him than the things which are seen.

It is also interesting to note that Abraham's faith grew strong "as he gave glory to God." Abraham gave glory to God-- praised Him for His goodness, thanked Him for His blessings, and attributed his success to God-- all while waiting in earnest hope for God's promise to be realized. This was what strengthened Abraham's faith, his trust in God-- thanking and praising God for the gifts of the present while waiting for the promise of the future.

May God grant me the strength to praise Him for His goodness and thank Him for His blessings today that I may strengthen my trust to believe in His promises for my future.

While I'm Waiting

Steady as the Seasons (Turning Over New Leaves)

The winds are changing--

A bitter wind blowing in and

Rearranging everything certain.

And with this descent of

Another Autumn

A million leaves have scattered

To mask the familiar.

But in time the winds will be changing--

A fresh wind bringing new

Life to the uncertain.

And with the rise of

A novel Spring

A million leaves will flourish

To paint the unfamiliar.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can't decide if I like this or not. I'll read it through once and feel like it captures what I'm feeling almost perfectly. Then I'll re-read it and decide that I really ought to give up all attempts at poetry because I only ever disappoint myself. I feel like when I write, I'm always on the very brink of something deeply profound, and yet somehow I've missed the boat completely. Maybe someday I'll come back to it and make some changes. Maybe I won't.

In any case, it seems hopeful. And hope is what I'm clinging to these days.

What I Live For

This happened a while back, but I'm just now getting around to writing about it. I know I haven't been a terribly faithful blogger in the last year or so...

Sometimes when I go to work, I wonder why I'm there. I wonder how on earth God can use me when all I'm doing is sticking people with needles and changing dressings on central lines. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. But sometimes I wonder how much purpose I have. Then, I meet patients like her.

I was orienting someone new to our IV team. It was evening shift, and I was feeling like I was just about at the end of my patience. The person I was orienting (we'll call her Felicia) was having a hard time. I was explaining things over and over, and they were just not getting through. So Felicia and I were called to a room to access a port-a-cath, which she had done before with another IV team member (click here and scroll down a bit if you care to know more about port-a-caths and how they're accessed). Outside of the patient's room, I reviewed her on all of the supplies we would need because it's hard to remember it all sometimes. I walked her through the process before we went in, and I hoped it would go well.

The patient (we'll call her Mrs. Ashwood) had asked for her port-a-cath needle to be changed because someone had used a really long needle, and it was sticking too far out of her skin. She was afraid she might bump it on something in the night. As we talked to her, we discovered that several IV team members had tried to access it the day before, and it took multiple attempts. My heart sank. I didn't really want to let Felicia try, but I asked Mrs. Ashwood if it would be alright if she did it while I supervised. She said she didn't mind at all.

Felicia got out her equipment, and very soon after beginning, contaminated her sterile gloves without realizing it. I stopped her, gave her some new gloves, and the process continued. To make a long story shorter, Felicia missed on the first try, but Mrs. Ashwood said she was ok with Felicia trying again. So we trotted off to get more supplies, and I made use of the time to coach Felicia some more. My patience was wearing even thinner, and I really just wanted to access the port myself, but I knew that Felicia needed to try again.

When we returned to Mrs. Ashwood's room, I began talking with her while Felicia got her things ready. She began to open up to me about why she was in the hospital and what she was going through. She had cancer. It had been gone for a while, but just recently they thought they had seen some spots on her liver. The doctors had gone back and forth between being certain it was nothing and telling her that it was a metastasis of her old cancer. Finally, they decided that she had advanced mets cancer in her liver and elsewhere. She was having to make decisions about whether or not to undergo more treatments and which doctors or hospital to go to. She confessed that she wasn't even sure if it was worth it because her prognosis was not good. As she spoke to me, I listened and also told her a little bit about my grandfather and what he had gone through when he had cancer. I nearly began to cry as I talked to her because I realized how similar their stories were.

As Felicia and I finished what we needed to do-- nearly an hour later-- I felt impressed to pray with her. I asked Mrs. Ashwood if that would be alright, and she said she would love that. So I prayed. For peace, for wisdom, but most of all for God's Presence and comfort. When I finished she was crying. She told me that she and her husband had been missionaries for 12 years, and we talked about missions and life in other countries. By the time I left the room, I was nearly in tears. I was amazed at her attitude and positive spirit, and I had told her so when I was in the room. And I was humbled that God had seen fit for us to be in her room long enough for me to be able to help her find comfort and peace in God's hands. It was a good reminder for me that God still knows what He's doing-- even when I'm frustrated and impatient.

Experiences like this are the ones I live for.

Mining, Chemical Equations, and Other Things

I've got a lot on my mind right now. I suppose that's nothing new, but at this very moment, I'm feeling rather flooded with too many thoughts. So please forgive the overflow here; I just need an outlet. And please forgive any randomness or incompleteness of thought.

I don't know a lot about mining for gems, but I have an idea that it's a difficult process. It takes a lot of pressure, tedious work, and maybe even involves a lot of what seems to be excess waste. But somewhere under all the dirt and lava rock layers lies something of great value. Great value. And beauty. And it's worth all the tedious work, all the pressure, all the removal of the unvaluable to find the invaluable. All of these things I know. I have no doubts regarding the value or the fact that it will require great effort to reach the end result of beauty and worth. I have no doubt that it's worth the trouble. But the thought that's running around in my mind at the moment is, how can you be certain there's a gem beneath it all? What if all the work and pressure is being spent on an ordinary rock? And how can you tell the difference between an ordinary rock and a gem without all the work and pressure-- from the outside surface? How do you determine when or if the process should be abandoned? What if you might be about to abandon a real gem? What if you walk away from something of great worth and beauty?

Switching gears, but still related. I love balancing chemical equations. I know, I'm a little bit nerdy. But it's fun; it's a puzzle. Just like scheduling. But that's another topic for another day. In chemical equations, the combination of two or more elements produces something. And on both sides of the equation, everything has to balance out; you can't have more or less than what you started with (in terms of matter) when all is said and done. You have to have the same number of hydrogen/sodium/whatever ions pre-reaction and post-reaction. To me, life doesn't always seem to work like this. Sometimes I wonder as I'm trying to balance on both sides of the equation if maybe I'm coming up one hydrogen short. Everything seems to balance out so well, except for that one little hydrogen ion that seems to be missing. Maybe the problem is me. Maybe I'm just not seeing it; maybe I'm overlooking it. And then I begin to wonder, how important is chemistry in life anyway?

Unrelated now. I came across a profound verse in Exodus yesterday in my devotions. It really deserves a blog post all its own, but for now... here it is.

God saw the people of Israel-- and God knew. Exodus 2:25

This particular verse is referring to the Israelites crying out to God in the oppression of slavery under Egyptian rule. But it really struck me. God saw and God knew. Immediately it called to mind Hagar and Ishmael.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, 'Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?' She said, 'I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.'

And the angel of the Lord said to her, 'Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction.'

So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are a God of seeing,' for she said, 'Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.' Therefore the well was called Beer-lahairoi.

Exodus 16:7, 8, 11, 13, 14

Ishmael means "God hears." And Beer-lahairoi means "the well of the Living One who sees me."

God saw and God knew. In Hagar's utter despair, as she is about to give up, she is reassured that God, the Living One, sees her. He knows her affliction, He knows her despair; He sees it.

Back to the verse in Exodus 2:25 and its context. Just after that verse, God appears to Moses in the burning bush. Just after that verse, God moves. He sees, He knows, and then, He moves, working on our behalf. Because He is the Great God Who Saves.

Maybe it's not so unrelated after all.

Don't Sit Still

I promise I'm going to write something original soon. Really. But until then... This is a really neat article. What a revolutionary idea- to stop squelching children's innate needs to move.