Rejoicing In The Story…

 

I absolutely love my life.

Everything about it: highs, lows, ecstasies, frustrations, passions, boredoms, loves, and heartbreaks.

Because it is my life, my story and it is being written by God.

Are there moments that I find myself in that are completely frustrating and that make me want to loose my mind?  Yep.  Do I ever feel lonely?  Frequently.  Have I ever wished the future would hurry up and get here?  Duh.  Do I wish that certain things were different?  Of course.  Are there times when I feel like God has forgotten me?  Much to my very great lack of faith, yes.

Fortunately, I serve a Savior who never tires, that chose me as His own, and that has a perfect plan for my life.  In those moments when my depravity says He is taunting me His truth reminds me that He is showing me what is possible.  He gives me the grace, strength, and patience to believe that He does indeed answer prayers and that when He does answer it is always beyond what I could dream of.

I know this because I have stood back, jaw on the floor, as I have seen Him answer prayers far and above anything I could have dreamed of.  I have cried tears of the most inexpressible joy as I saw the deep desires answered.  Desires that I did not even fully realize that I was praying for.  He saw into the depths and He answered.

He calls me to wait.  He calls me to rest in Him.  He calls me to faithfulness.  He calls me to obedience.  He calls me to blessedness.  He calls me to unconditional love.  He calls me to provision.

Above all else He calls me to know that He loves me and that I am His dear and precious daughter.  Every need, want, and desire He will answer in a true and faithful way.  He will not leave me destitute.

This is why I love my life and I can take great joy and delight in it despite all the human irritations that take place in it.  His provision has blessed me and brought me to where I need to be in His usual, unexplainable way.  This is why I rejoice in the story that He is writing because it is so absolutely beautiful that it takes my breath away when I remember to see it for what it is right now: the middle of the story.

When I get frustrated, lost, lonely, or uncertain, I have to remember that I am the protagonist in a larger story than my own life.  I am in HIS story of my life and He will tell it much better than I ever could.  It is because of this that I remember that my story will only end in the greatest of joys.  I have hope in the joy that is set before me for all eternity and it is a story that will never end.  It will continue on past the end of time.

Right now I live in volume one and I am only in those first few beginning chapters.  Let me go “further up and further in” for there is so much more to come!

Returning to Joy…

Joy is not an emotion or sense that I have had much of over the past few years. Since college my life has mostly been defined by sadness and heartbreak and somehow that became my identity. I forgot how to love and how to give love. Then, as He unfailingly does, Christ turned up and pulled me back to Him.

Turns out I just had to move around the world to find myself in the perfect place for His work to be done in me and in my heart. Obviously His timing was perfect and this could have happened anywhere in the world but He chose for it to be here. This single, solitary fact has alone made my move to Al Ain the best decision of my entire life. Without a doubt.

What happened? I will spare the details but here are the bullet points.

1. God sent me the friends I needed who would help guide me back to Him.

2. I realized that I just needed to start loving people again.

3. Understanding that performance based love is not really love and that there is no way that I can make God, or people, love me more.

4. I had to let people love me and believe that they actually did.

5. I had to submit to circumstances that I was not happy about in order to do what I was called to do.

6. When sin has a foothold in your life you need to tell someone so that the matter can be brought to light and they can pray about it with you.

7. When sinful thoughts enter your mind command them to go away with the name of Christ.

8. Do not be afraid to let go of people and events that are not meant for this time in your life.

9. Immerse yourself into God’s word and grow to love Him again.

10. Forgiveness and love. Forgiveness and love. Over and over again.

Through this, and all the details, epiphanies, tears, self-death, and truth that came with it, I realized the other day that for the first time in a very long time I am truly and richly happy again. My laugh comes up out of my soul and I delightfully throw my head back as it bubbles out of me. My smile comes easily and the pain behind it is almost gone. I am peaceful and content. There is true joy once again.

So, now, I set out on a new journey. In this journey I begin to figure out who I am, what I am called to do, and what I actually enjoy doing. So many things I have done were because I was supposed to do them because they made other people happy. Now, I sit and ponder what I would actually like to do.

I have been richly blessed. There is no doubt about this. I will continue to walk on following the guidance of those wise people that God has placed in my life. I will continue to work, sacrifice, and love those around me. I will smile because I am happy not because everyone expects Christine to smile. I will keep curling up daily with my Bible, journal, my pen, and a random book of choice. I will seek silence daily. I will open my heart and ears for God’s leading. I will choose to forgive wherever it is needed. I will choose Christ.

I am a victim of God’s mercy and of that I have no doubt. I am a blessed woman.

Nighttime Clarity…

I have been working my way through two weeks of night shifts. Normally, in my life on the other side of the globe, I would have run from these shifts screaming but here I find them to be a major relief from the pressures that I find here during the day. Currently, there is a word document on my computer which is growing into quite a thorough work on the emotions one experiences going through culture shock along with all the other baggage that life likes to give you. Maybe one day it will be cleared for universal reading but at this point I think I will keep a lid on it. You know, maybe just see how the story works itself out. The writting is helping though. So many days here I feel like a bull in a china shop without even intending too. I say or do something that taken into a different cultural context does not translate well and my best intentions end up falling flat on their face. At this point I end up having melt down in one way or another.

It’s been 5 months now. Five long, intense, really fun yet frustrating months. If you asked me to actually verbalize what I have learned at this point I really could not tell you but I am beginning to feel the changes. The beauty of leaving everything you have known and opening yourself up to new worlds is that you begin to learn just how small the blinders you were wearing were. It broadens your perspective on everything inculding scripture. In fact you find that you cannot exist through this without your God and His word. That alone is worth the journey and the experience.

Night shifts lift from me the pressure to conform to the expectations of other cultures and their perceptions and to return to being myself and caring for my patients as I see fit. It removes many of the daily clashes that I have with people and gives my defenses a break. Being one of very few Americans in my little world I am forced to be constantly on my toes when I talk to people and also in how I talk to them and what I say (Christine is getting a filter…who would have thought.). Day in and day out I am struggling and learning to a point where I feel I am about to explode. Then, in the stillness of the night I find rest and peace.

So, here I sit and sort out emotions, struggles, decisions, frustrations, and goals. As the hours slip by under the dim lights of the midnight shifts, babies all sunggled in their blankets, tummys full, and snug as little bugs I find a reset happens. I find that my emotions stop flailing and I come to my center again. Tomorrow or the next day a new wave will probably stike that leave me feeling as though all of these words were for nothing but each moment has it’s value. The upheavals teach more than the still waters. This I know all too well.

All these lessons are for the best. As I settle in I find myself learning that all will be well. I find that I am not flailing the way I was before. Certainly the ground beneath my feet has been rocked but even that is settling. Day in and day out I find that life is pleasant more than it is not.

Indeed, it is worth being here. Even in the moments when I think I am about to loose my mind.

My Peace I Give To You…

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”  ~John 14:27(ESV)

I love Passion/Holy Week.  For me it is always one of the most special times of the year spiritually.  It is a week during which I prefer to spend a lot of time alone with my bible, in silence, listening with an open heart to where God guides my soul.  Obviously, things are very different in my life this year, but I have to say that it is a good different.  Also, I do have the apartment to myself as Cherie’s parents are in town and they are staying at a friend’s place.  Differences and similarities…completely in keeping with all of life.

There has been a great lack of peace in my life for probably almost about a year now.  Mostly it is my fault for I was the one who allowed my soul to wander, but with that there was also a great deal of loss, pain, and upheaval.  With it all came discontent, distrust, and wariness.  I was carrying baggage that I had no business carrying.  In my grasping, human way though, I kept holding on, afraid to let go.  

About a week ago now, I did something important.  I destroyed a letter that had been very hurtful to me and with this action came a great deal of prayer.  In the week since this happened I have felt so free.  It is as if the destruction of the letter actually took away the effect that those pages had on my mind and heart.  

Now, a week later, after feeding my heart constantly the whole time and being gifted with a week of rest, I find a smile truly flooding back to my face.  His peace, that blessed, wonderful, unexplainable sense of love, joy, and happiness, is bubbling forth again.  In breaking ties with the past I was able to look forward to the future and in some ways forget what had happened.  I was able to remove the power of those words by the power of God and begin to look forward.

Also, I realized that rather than focusing on all that had been lost I would rejoice in what was given.  The friends that I was allowed to keep.  The new ones I have here.  I will open myself up again and love those in my life no matter their quirks or the little things that may irritate me.  I made a decision to choose Christ instead of refusing His healing.

So, my verse for the day.  Peace is my theme.  Joy is my mood.  Yes, days will still come in which I cry, weep, and mourn but the beautiful thing is, I always have my God to lovingly bring me back home.

Let us see what beauty this Passion Week will bring… 

Still Young…

Sometimes, it just helps for me to remember that I am only 26 right now and everything doesn’t have to be perfect.

I spent an amazing weekend at The 3rd International Neonatology Conference on Hot Topics in Neonatology in Abu Dhabi this past week.  My knowledge of neonatal medicine is much higher now and I am very inspired to use several of the lectures to begin to bring change to my unit.  The lectures of growth restriction, human milk, and protein intake for low birth weight babies by Ekhard Zeigler  were my absolute favorites…though actually having the inventors of NAVA ventilation there to explain this wonderful technology to us was also spectacular.  The Intercontinental Hotel where the conference was held was beautiful and I could do a whole blog post on the delicious food they served us.  Truly an amazing weekend.

Then, this morning, I had to start returning to reality (though for the majority of the day I pretended that I work in a perfect NICU where I could do anything I wanted) and went and talked to all the key people in my hospital about possible changes that could be made.  A lot of people are very open to the ideas but there are still plenty who resist the ideas, which makes it hard…particularly when you are someone with my personality and passion level.  When people just don’t catch on to your excitement it is so deflating.

All of this, however, has brought the great question to my mind of how exactly do I bring change to an environment, and possibly a culture, that is resistant to change.  How do you bring into the understanding different cultures, education, and ways of thinking and help guide people along to a good outcome and end goal?  How do you really figure out what is best and what change actually needs to happen?  How do you peacefully fight a battle and truly change people’s way of thinking?

I honestly do not know the answers.  I know what I want to do but I really do not know how to get there.  I don’t truly understand everything involved in even ironing out the goal and seeing the full picture for just myself.  How much less do I understand how to show other people why my passion matters.  This is when it really is helpful to remember that I am only 26 (which is not that old) and I am not supposed to be the world’s foremost expert on education, neonatology, and nursing care all in a two month span of time.  I am supposed to be learning right now and opening my ears to listen to what people say to me so that my understanding is increased.  Time will provide the answer as it always does.

I look at this situation in front of me and I realize that yes, it is filled with challenges but they are good challenges.  They are goals to keep me busy, to cause growth, to give direction to my passion.  I smile as I remember a quote from one of my favorite movies, Amazing Grace..

Wilberforce: “Billy, no one of our age has ever taken power.”

William Pitt: “Which is why we’re too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway.”

Youth comes with growing life experience.  It comes with passion, ideas, and drive.  It comes with a mind that still easily receives and stores knowledge.  It is a time to seek out knowledge and begin to set yourself along a path that will continue for the rest of your life.  None of your life experiences is ever separate from the other.  They are all needed.  They are all necessary.  This is why you must trust God’s guiding grace and direction in your life.  He will give you the tools you need to do whatever job He places before you.

So, for myself, I go on and I move forward.  I seek the answer, I swallow the disappointments, and I continue to learn.  I come to see that those older and wiser than myself often have wonderful reasons when they say no.  I also see that they are encouraging me to continue learning and growing.  I realize that 26 is not the end of life but the beginning.  I see that there are many more years to live out and how much will be different at this time next year?  Who can even say…but I am willing to bet that in one way or another things will look differently very soon.