SICU

I believe you still heal.
And demons still bow.
I’m convinced there is power
In trusting in a faithful God

So I will praise til you appear
and set your foot upon this shore
I declare that every foe
Is subject to my faithful God

Faithful God-Zach Nees

Oh man.

This last week has been brutal. I have no words to describe the kind of spiritual, emotional, and physical pain I have been hit with since last Sunday. I do not mean depression. I have been through depression before. I am a veteran of the kind of depression that makes leaving bed impossible, that makes breathing difficult and chokes life out of your heart. I was not depressed. I was frustrated to the point of wanting to break things, felt betrayed by God, could not feel positive about new opportunities that were right in front of me because I literally did not trust, did not feel that I could trust, that they would come to fruition without more pain.
Perhaps I should back up and try to make a more cohesive story out of it.
Sunday night I was preparing for an interview with a Home Health company that called me on Friday. Problem is, my phone had gone out, which is a pretty key item for a home health nursing job (also, my GPS is on my phone), and my computer was for some reason suddenly running s-l-o-w a-s m-o-l-a-s-s-e-s-s. My pain level was high. Okay, now the stage is set.
The interview Monday went well-so well, in fact, that they began to train me.
You'd think I'd be happy, right?
I couldn't bring myself to hope. I just couldn't do it. If you'll remember the last Home Health job I got, everything went south as soon as I finished my training. Normally I am tirelessly optimistic, and only hit pessimistic spots when I indulge depression. I couldn't help it. Try as I might, I couldn't feel happy.
You see, I was overloaded on pain. Everything hurts right now. Everywhere I turn there are more things to endure, more reasons that I have to "pull myself together" and keep going, and everything, everything, EVERYTHING is agony. I swear, I'm not whining. I know it sounds like I am, but I have tried and will try to find new and creative ways to deal, at least until we can start running tests again.
But all week I have been on overload. Every time I am alone I dissolve into hysteria, screaming, crying until my eyes swell shut, praying desperately, and hear nothing from heaven. I know that this is because a) I am too hurt/panicked/tired/whatever to hear it or b) God wants to show me a new way to listen. Either way, my desperation grew. I knew there was SOMETHING on the horizon. Every time I opened the Word, all I found were verses telling me "ask, and I'll give you what you need." Stories about wild and crazy miracles coming at just the right time, prophets praying for and receiving blessings for poor widows and children, Jesus healing the sick and broken and telling the disciples, "You will do greater things than these in My name,"
But I needed more than SOMETHING. I was in agony, could barely hold on. Money running short, hope gone, no emotional reserves. I asked God for little things, not to test Him, but because, as I cried to Him one night, "I need something other than pain from Your hand."
I asked God, most notably, that when I called the people that hold the note on my car, that they would be compassionate and not get angry with me that my payment would be late. My hands trembled when I told her, "I'm so sorry, but I've been out of work for a month...It's got to do with the health problems I've been having, but I got a new job today. I'll let you know as soon as I find out when my first pay check will be." The woman's voice turned soft and compassionate.
"Oh, honey...you must be really, really sick. I'm so sorry."
I nearly started sobbing on the phone with a creditor. Not a cool look.
But God did several things like that, to let me know that He really was still taking care of me. But I still didn't understand, still writhed like an animal in a trap. Everywhere I turned there was anguish, and I couldn't escape.
Tuesday evening with Laura was a blessed refuge. She made me enchiladas and we watched YouTube, and I was shocked to find that she understood some things that a lot of people don't grasp right away. She's been going through her own shadowlands. We prayed together, and I wound up crying again into their leather sofa.
Since then, I have been thinking, and I've come to understand that this week I've been more or less in the Spiritual ICU. It's what happens sometimes when a callous world beats us bloody and for whatever reason God lets us walk through a Job period. The pain is there, the damage is done, but God is faithful, God is Healer, and God can deal with our frustration and rage and lashing out and asking why and feeling hurt.
Today I was listening to the song, which lyrics I have typed out in part above. When I heard that part of the song, it was as if God finall plugged the hole in my heart where I've been bleeding out all week.
Now I feel as though I'm just beginning to drift into that normal spiritual state that I usually occupy, the heavenly equivalent of coming out of a seizure or ICU psychosis. It was far too violent for a coma.
Hey, God, maybe more drugs next time?

Consuming fire

"When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man; not that He has a disinterested because really indifferent concern for our welfare, but that in awful and surprising truth, we are the object of His love. You asked for a loving God, you have one. The great Spirit you so lightly invoked, the Lord of terrible aspect, is present. Not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests; But the Consuming Fire Himself-The Love that made the worlds, persistent as an artists love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know. It passes reason to explain how any creatures-not to say creatures such as we-should have a value so prodigious in their Creator's eyes. It is certainly a burden of Glory not only beyond our deserts, but also, except in rare moments of Grace, beyond our desire." C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain

Father, how can I answer Your love with anything other than adoration? How can I call anything I receive from Your hand, be it joy, pain, blessing, hardship, or anything in between, any at all but a direct outflow of your passionate consuming love for me? This diluted bilge we pass to one another and call love has only a taste of the burning you have for us. There are no words in our language to describe your desire, and if we spent generations writing poems defining ever more intense adjectives, we could still only scratch the surface. It is the kind of love that makes men go mad, that makes women give their lives, that makes children grow still and silent and old men dance and sing like toddlers. It is the love that drove You to kneel down in Gethsemane and pray for strength rather than running to hide from Your executioners, that made You still Your holy hands beneath the nails. Your love for us is complete, Father-it has won. There is no wound it cannot heal, no life it cannot touch, if only we will be the bearers of it.
Father, make me a vessel of Your consuming, burning Love. Let it destroy me until only You remain.

Blinded by the light

So Elisha was in Dothan when this big honkin' army came after him. His servant freaks out and says, "Holy crap, what are we gonna do?" Elisha says,
"Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.-2 Kings 15-17, paraphrased.
Then, Elisha prayed that God would strike the attacking army with blindness, and BAM, they were blind. But there's a catch. Elisha then took them to the king of Israel and ensured that they were treated very kindly, then returned to their homes. He didn't abuse his power. God did as he asked with the knowledge that he was asking within the knowledge and wisdom that comes from abiding in the Word. Elisha didn't have the advantage of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as we do today under the new covenant, but he did act out of love for his God and for his neighbor. In other words, he did the best he could.
But back to the central point of the story. God always tips the balance of the scales in our favor. God is always the deciding factor of any battle. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31
He does not lose.
Ever.
God has His hand between me and the full impact of what I am truly facing right now. I keep thinking about it knowing I should be in a constant state of panic and terror. I am always one degree away from ruin, a few pills away from agony. And yet...Am I really? If God is for me...am I really that close to disaster? I don't think so. If disaster falls upon me, it's from His hand, and for the glory of His name, and He will help me through each moment and hour and day.
That's how I am living right now. Five minutes at a time. And when that gets to be too much, I take it minute by minute. Still too heavy? That's what they make seconds for. It doesn't matter. I can take whatever is thrown at me. I have an army on my side.

My friend the Kitty.

I have the world's coolest cat.
She is an only cat right now. She used to have a partner in crime, a twelve-year-old counterpart named, appropriately, Old Lady, who recently passed away. Old Lady has only been my cat for about four years.
Trippy, however, has been my cat since I got out of Nursing school seven years ago. She and I have been through the wringer together. She has tolerated my ups and downs with remarkable grace, and I in turn have put up with her feline idiosyncrasies as well as I might.
When I got out of nursing school and got a job, the first thing I did was go to the animal shelter to adopt a cat. I didn't want a tabby, especially not a gray one. I was tired of tabbies. I wanted a nice seal point or maybe a calico. When I went to the animal shelter, I pulled her out just because those big green eyes were so sweet, I thought, "She probably hasn't been held today. I'll just hold her for a second to give her some love, and then move on." When I put her back in the kennel, her little front paws shot out, and her arms grabbed onto mine and held tight. No claws, just a tight, determined, "please don't leave me" hug.
I was a goner. I went immediately to the front desk with the card from her kennel door and told them I was her new owner. They asked if I would like to hold her while they filled out the paperwork and let me sign it. When they brought her out, she wriggled out of my arms and perched on my shoulder to watch the proceedings, presumably to make sure we didn't mess anything up. When I brought her home from the vet's office two days later after her spaying, she was so loopy from the medication that she was staggering left, right, running into walls, attacking shadows and losing fights with invisible foes. This is how she got her name, because on her first day home she was tripping harder than any druggie I have ever seen.
Seven years later, she and I understand each other about as well as human and cat can. She comes when I call, supervises me at all times when I am in the house, and even ensures that I am in bed on time. No joke-Corrie is my witness. If I am late getting in bed, she will come and get me.
Lately...what am I saying? It's not just lately. Since I started taking all this pain medication, it's been making me sick. I've been vomiting at least twice a week (that's if I'm lucky) for the last couple of months. Phenergan has become my best friend. When I am in the bathroom getting sick, Tripps will either come into the bathroom with me or, if the door is shut, she will stand outside of it and cry.
She knows something is wrong that is not going away. Early one morning, as I was tossing and turning, in pain that wouldn't abate, I felt her crawl under the covers and lie down right on the painful area on my abdomen. My initial response was "Seriously? You HAVE to lay RIGHT THERE?" But I was so tired that I wound up drifting off to sleep before I could coax her to move somewhere else. When I woke, I realized that she had turned into a little ball of warmth right on the pain. Now, heat doesn't really help any more, but then, the combination of the pressure from her weight, the vibration from her purring, and the concentrated heat from her body tucked under the comforter reduced my pain so much it was unbelievable.
What is my point? Why am I writing about this on a blog where I am supposed to be recording my musings about life, spirituality, my walk with God, and my observations on the Christian journey? Well, firstly, because I wanted to. I wanted to write about something positive, and this was what I picked.
Second, I'm trying to come to understand and appreciate the smaller things that God has put into my life, like little treasures hidden here and there to help me get through just a few more hours of each day. That's all I can do any more. Just breathe in and out a few more times. Just make sure that much more of my day passes. Everyone has those times, when that is literally all that can be done.
I am so grateful for the little things. I am a little thing.
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." Mother Theresa

Rest Easy

One more mile 'til I lay rest
I have put myself through this rigid test
But the mile is neverending
No distance has been gained
I do not see greatness
I wanted to obtain
Where is my embrace
From the race that I have run?
I've kept a steady pace
But still I have not won....
-"Rest Easy"- Audio Adrenaline
I believe that God is in control. He keeps all things perfectly ordered, and lets not one of us slip through His fingers. Not even a sparrow falls without His knowledge. I know He'll work all of this out for the good.
But I'm so tired.
I'm completely out of fight. I could barely get out of bed today. I feel like a well-accepted circus freak so often. What I am is not normal. I may live under a deeper umbrella of graciousness, but there is a need there also for respite.
Normal people do not have to have two handfuls of pills every day, one handful scheduled, and one handful just to kill the pain. Normal people can type a paragraph without falling asleep three times. Normal people don't have to worry about vomiting on themselves at church.
I suppose somewhere along the way, God decided that I was worthy of giving a little extra sum'in-sum'in to. If that's so, then I, with God's grace upon me, can handle whatever Satan, that old dragon, can throw at me.

I suppose I should share the reason for this tirade.
The new job I got, the one that fell into my lap so beautifully, fell apart on thursday. The nurse I was hired to replace apparently isn't leaving. Now, here's the interesting part. My boss told me,
"My husband and I love you. There's something about you-you belong here. I really want you working for us." So she promised to call me every couple of days and let me know what she has for me.

God, I'm ready and willing to submit to Your will. You make no wrong moves, and You hold me tenderly in the palm of Your hand, but if it wouldn't be too much to ask, could you make something miraculous happen here?

If not, it would be just great if You could refresh me. I'm dying here. Only You can fix this whining, quivering mess for Your glory.

I want to sit at Your feet
Drink from the cup in Your hand
Lay back against You and breathe
Feel Your heart beat
This Love is so deep
It's more than I can stand
I melt in Your peace
It's overwhelming

"The More I Seek You"-Kari Jobe

This beautiful bitterness

Here's the thing...when I started this blog, my goal was to show my ruminations on my quiet time with a humorist's slant, the end result being the potential of having a book full of relevant, gut-deep observations on the Christian walk that also made people laugh until they coughed up various vestigial organs. I wanted the gut-twisting sincerity of The Shack, some light apologetics, and over it all a funny twist that kept even shallow people coming back for more just to hear the next joke or wisecrack.
Thing is, my life hasn't been very funny lately. I'm not saying it's been bad. God blessed, God blesses, and God will bless. But God has also introduced new things into my life that actually caused a pause in humor for some time. I kept hearing complaints like, "You have no sense of humor any more." For me, that's like hearing that you are missing a leg and somehow failed to notice it. I didn't want to write about the goings-on because the lessons I am learning, though straight from God's palm and a privilege for which I am thankful, are not funny sometimes. I have wept more, prayed more, felt more despair and frustration and anger and, to top it all, that all-consuming sensation of PAIN in the last few months than I think I ever knew I had the capacity to bear. But I've also felt more gratitude, both to the people around me and to the God that cares for me, loved more deeply, prayed more openly, and appreciated the things that I have so much more.
To not write about the things I'm going through is to do a disservice to God, and to the one who might, by some chance, stumble across these bits of information translated into words on a computer screen and find some help, answers, identification, or succor in my groping and grasping attempts to find a way home.

So here's my big info-dump update: A few months ago I started experiencing severe lower abdominal pain that actually landed me in the hospital for a couple of days and knocked me out of commission for work for about six weeks. The financial devastation aside, I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not at work, and there were days that the pain was so intense I could barely leave my bed. So many tests have been and will be run, but there is nothing forthcoming at the moment. I am still in pain. I have an entirely new appreciation for my patients who have lived with chronic pain for years. I have lost my job, an entirely separate story about God's infinite grace that will be elaborated upon shortly. I feel like the only two things I do any more are sleep and hurt, and there's no point in denying that I have been having depression issues from it all.
Still, there is no way to deny that God is good. I have never been without food, without a home, without medicine. And the following story is an object study in literally being crushed beneath God's mercy. Read on, I beg you.

Since going back to work, I had sensed a difference in my supervisor's attitude toward me. They were, for the first few days, very courteous, but cold. I felt them watching me through the weeks, waiting for me to slip up. Then my workload began increasing. They started giving me "extra" work that seemed almost designed to trigger the pain I was having and exhaust me, as well as cutting away hours of time during which I could have been attending to my patients. I repeatedly requested relief, was promised it, and was given none. I was also denied a desk job that would have taken me off the floor and been so much easier on my body.
Then, the fateful day came. I'll start off by saying that I had a dream the night before all this erupted, about being saved from evil by angels. I've been dreaming about angels a lot lately. I'll write about the dream in detail here later, but for now the synopsis will serve.
That whole day at work I was battling a choking feeling of despair. The place that I had once felt such warmth and appreciation was now cold as ice. Even as I was clocking out, I knew that my time there was short if this atmosphere kept up. Then on my way home, I got a call from my DON. She canceled my shift, and wanted me to come in and "talk with her" about "some things that were going on at the nursing home." I'm not an idiot. I was very blunt, and asked her if I was fired. Her answer?
"No, I can't do that unless I've talked to corporate." In other words, just a matter of time.
I went home and spent about four hours on the floor of my room on my face, weeping, praying, begging God for some miracle, some way out. I wept and prayed so hard that I ruptured blood vessels under my eyes. The bruises are still there. Somewhere along the way, I prayed this, and I think I will remember it for the rest of my life:
O God, Who knows my name
Who makes no wrong moves
Who holds my life
Make me an instrument
Mold me only to serve You
You cannot slip, You cannot falter
Go before me, O Maker of ways
Where there is no way
Hold me, You whose hands are steady
Though You slay me, yet will I trust in You.

Between calls and text messaging from a gimpy phone that eventually sulled up and refused to work and sending out e-mails, I managed to activate the powerhouse prayer chain that it is my privilege to be a part of. A long talk with my dad soothed me, a long talk with my mom justified me, and soon I had a plan. Much more prayer, much more prostration. I finally rested, after talking to the roomies, and drifted into a dreamless sleep.

When I awoke, my mind was crystal clear, my resolve rock-hard. I felt like one about to engage in battle, and I was aware that it could very well be the fight of my life. I fasted from food and liquids, something I never do, but I felt that anything I introduced into my body would shake my focus. I took only enough water to swallow my medication, brought food and water for after the meeting, and headed out. The weather was cold and rainy, but there was an atmosphere of warmth in my car. I felt as if the angels from my dream the previous night were in my backseat, wrapping their wings around me. For all I know, they could have been.

When I arrived for the meeting, I found a dollar in the parking lot. It was laying there in the standing water on the parking lot, crisp, folded in half, waiting at my feet. I bent over and picked it up. There was a certainty in my heart at that very moment that God was undoubtedly, unshakably on my side, that He would fight for me, that He would rescue me.

To make a long story short, after listening to a nonsense write-up, being shouted at when I attempted to defend myself, and being denied the right to sign my write-up slip, I turned in a lengthy resignation letter that told her exactly what I thought about what was happening, clipped together with my name badge, and walked out the door, dignity intact.

I drove straight to my doctor's office, cried on her shoulder, and together we formed a plan. I needed to find an interim job, something flexible, that would let me do as much as I could do with my last gasp of insurance and hopefully get this pain diagnosed. She also knew a few people in town that were hiring for nurses, including a home health office, with which I have experience.

As I was leaving the doctor's office, Dr. Horsley came bursting out of a room with a very nice lady in tow. She introduced us, and told me, "This is the woman that owns the home health office I told you about." Before I left, I had a job, two and a half hours after I had resigned. The lady kept hugging me and telling me that God had brought me to her. I have to admit, I agreed, and I could and hugged that woman into bits.

So there you have it. That one set of circumstances has shattered, scattering into a million rainbow pieces of Grace and Mercy. Where it will lead in the future, no one knows, but for now, I'm safe in the arms of Love.

All this to say, I feel a duty to begin blogging again, if only to record the things that are happening and how God is slowly, slowly breaking me down and reworking me into something that He can use for His glory. If anyone reads it, gains anything from it, excellent. Who knows, there may even still be something to laugh at in this mishmash life.

Nightmarionnete

I am afraid of puppets.
Not the big, soft, fuzzy ones like the Muppets or the Avenue Q puppets or the more dollike ventriloquism dummies like Jeff Dunham's handiwork. I'm talking about Marionettes. The puppet scene from Sound of Music has always given me cold chills. In recent years, it has progressed to the point that I flinch away from the mere sight of a marionette. This last Halloween, I walked into a costume shop without paying attention where I was going (let this be a lesson to everyone, texting while doing anything else never pays off. It's evil. God doesn't like it.) and nearly ran smack into a six foot tall corpse marionette. The panic attack that ensued was of titanic proportions. Luckily, I think that particular chain of transient, here-today-gone-tomorrow, disposable Halloween store has trained technicians standing by with Ativan syringes and paper breathing bags ready to pounce.
Now, if it had been moving, I would have had to either leave the store, or avoid eye contact with that section somehow. As it was, the sight of the monstrosity was so hideous that I had to take a picture of it on my phone and send it to my Jen. 'Cause sometimes, the Nasty just has to be shared.
So it's not so much the appearance of the marionettes that is so frightening to me. It's the strings, the pulling motion, the fact that it's a dead thing being controlled by someone else. It looks like a corpse being animated by some sicko in a horror flick.
Now that you've got that little image running around in your head and may never be able to watch a puppet show again, let me explain why I'm writing this. While I was getting ready for work this morning I had the song "Boy on a String" by Jars of Clay rolling through my head. It was one of those mornings where I felt pulled in every direction, and the feeling continued for most of the day. As I looked in the mirror, putting on makeup, I noticed that I looked rather pale except for my blush, and I thought to myself, "Man. I even look like a marionette. I'm ready to go onstage and get yanked around by a dozen different strings."
We all have those days. I have them a lot less frequently than I used to, thank God. Some of us are worse about letting ourselves get manipulated. Some of us simply want to help and wind up running in a thousand different directions.
But there's a different, more sinister kind of manipulation that can happen in people's lives. Those strings can be tied around the world's fingers or around the cruel fingers of Satan, which are really one and the same, since he manages the joint until Last Call. He plays us expertly, tugging us in so many different directions we can't possibly stand or walk or run or do any of the things we were designed to do. Our joints ache from being twisted into ridiculous poses for his entertainment and there's not a thing we can do about it because we're dead. A dead thing can't fight. A dead thing can't resist. A dead thing just lies there until the string pulls it. A dead thing is at the puppeteer's mercy, or lack thereof.
Then Christ comes, and like the valley of dry bones we have life breathed into us. The strings are cut, and we spring to life. We jump, we dance, we walk, we LIVE.
But Satan is Satan, and always will be, and damned if he doesn't grab the ends of those strings again and start to pull.
Here's the thing: We're not dead any more. He might jerk us around a little. He might even cut our feet out from under us from time to time. But we're not some dead thing any more. We don't have to just lie there. But too often we do. Just because you're in an ocean doesn't make you a fish. Just because you're on the ground doesn't make you dead. GET UP! Fight! Christ came to give us life more abundant, and Satan is trying to take it from us at every turn, but our job is to FIGHT.
I know there's a recurring, broken record theme in this blog: "Don't forget you're free. Stop acting like you're still in captivity." But I get so frustrated with myself. So often I find myself living in the doghouse when I should be acting like a princess. And I get tired and lazy and I don't want to work at it any more.
The solution?
GET UP! FIGHT!
Also, B12 shots help.

"Look at the crowd bleeding with laughter
Over the way you entertain at beck and call
They don't see behind the lights
Or the painted background
They just like to see you fall
You don't really mind
And you're just wasting time
You don't feel anything
You're a boy on a string."
"Boy on a String", Jars of Clay

There is nothing more annoying than a syrupy Jesus freak.
Let me rephrase, as almost every facet of that statement is unclear. Except "syrupy." Can't get much more clear than a good pancake analogy.
DC Talk immortalized the derogatory term for an enthusiastic Christian in their crazy-popular song "Jesus Freak." I still remember just about flying out of my skin at a DC Talk concert when they played this song. "What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus freak? What will people do when they find that it's true? I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak. There ain't no disguising the truth." Good song. But most of the unbelieving world uses the term "Jesus Freak" to describe a Christian who, despite all rules of polite society, fair play, and Ethical Treatment of Animals, broadcast their Christianity in the rudest ways possible. If you're one of these people, let me clue you in on something...
You kind of embarrass the rest of us.
We look at you like someone would look at an exuberant but not too bright child or a sweet, leg-humping puppy. Basically good to be around but with one really awkward habit that almost cancels out the joy of your company.
I was told one particularly memorable story that summarizes the kind of Christian I am talking about and what the world thinks of them. On a college campus, a friend of a friend with a particular flair for deadpan (how a person can have a flair for deadpan is beyond me, considering that the principle of deadpan is to have no flair whatsoever) was getting on an elevator. At the last moment, a young, bouncy, ponytailed blonde joined him. Rather than assuming the awkward Elevator Stranger silence, this girl turned to him and said "Hi! I love Jesus!"
The man stared at her flatly for a moment, then said in a deep, ominous monotone, "I worship Cthulu. Cthulu eats babies."
The girl got off at the next floor without another word. My point is that his response was inappropriate, but no more so than hers was.
It reminds me of my days as a Mary Kay sales rep. The sales scripts and recruiting tactics they used were, to me, unnatural and inappropriate, tacky and fake. Using them was, I think, as annoying to me as it was to the people I was selling to. I had great faith in the product--I still do! But I didn't know how to get the word out about my business in a medium I was comfortable enough with to be genuine, and I have an inherent problem with falsehood, from me more than from anyone else.
I think most people do, though, and that's kind of my point. They don't want a Sales Pitch to band-aid all their problems and tell them what to do with ten percent of their money. They need a real, solid, visceral reason why Jesus is the answer. Tacky one-liners and regurgitated scripts are almost worse than not saying anything at all.
Don't misunderstand me. In this dying world, we have to speak up. Let me repeat, with emphasis; WE HAVE TO SPEAK UP! People are literally starving for hope and healing and this is no time to stand on ceremony. This is not the time for an "I'm okay, you're okay" doctrine or a waffling reply to serious questions. There is no time to be standoffish or shy. Jesus is coming, people! LOOK BUSY!
If you're one of the "syrupy" believers mentioned above and at some point have tried to win souls via a memorized script or cheesy catch phrase, you're in good company. I've been there too, and it's not a sin. It's simply not as effective as some people might think.
Here's the deal: We don't win people to Christ. The Holy Spirit does that. We are here to translate the Word into everyday language for an unbelieving world. God doesn't even really need us to do that, but it's our privilege to serve the King. So why not be yourself? Jesus saved YOU, not some pre-written script. Dig down into your guts and find a way to express what He's done for you, whether it's through music or art or writing or the way you converse or a story you tell. God made beautiful myriads of people with infinite talent. Use yours for His glory. It's why He put it there. You have a beautiful story. No one's Salvation journey is boring, and it will reach someone out there if you keep telling it.
Now to Him who has presented Himself within us as Tapestry for the willing heart, who trains our fingers to be instruments in the battle of winning the lost and hurting, we lay our creativity and ability at Your feet and humbly ask for the opportunity and inspiration to use them for Your glory.

"There I dwelt once and dwell no longer
I can't live where I once did, though
The roof there used to cover me
Lord, you covered me long ago."
"Van Gogh's Prayer", Janos Pilzinsky

This is not going to be a depressing entry, I promise, despite the next sentence.
Today, I watched a woman being told she had cancer.
The way she handled it was incredible to watch. There was no horror, there was no self-pity or blaming. She maintained a serene smile and calmly told the doctor that she didn't want chemo or radiation, that she would rather go out with some dignity.
I am such a wuss.
I cannot believe the tranquility with which she heard the news of her impending death. The simple vocalization of the word "cancer" makes me flinch like a gunshot or an explosive round of profanity. I am not afraid of death, but what might precede death in that case is enough to make me quail.
I want to be her when I grow up.

In other news, I've made the decision to move to the morning shift. Perhaps blogging will become more frequent. Regardless, it will be a nice change to actually get to play with my friends before they have to go to bed.

Stand up straight! Get that mud off your pants!

My mom has taught me quite a few things through the years that have stuck with me. She never harped on wearing clean underwear thankfully, but she doled out a few of her own pearls. Don't put knives in murky dishwater, turn off the breakers in the event of an electrical fire, don't trust skunks, no matter how cute they are. One of them is this: "Don't come to work looking like you've just rolled out of bed. Straighten your hair, put your makeup on, iron your clothes. Don't just be hygienic. Look NICE. Your patients have no choice but to trust you with their lives. If you're too lazy to make yourself look good before you leave the house, how do they know you won't be too lazy to care for them properly?"
I am not a very girly girl, but something about that particular piece of advice stuck with me. I now rarely even leave the house without makeup, let alone go to work. It also affected the way I act with my patients. They see a more reserved, sweeter, and more polite person than my friends usually see. I am at my best at work, because I need the people there to trust me with their lives. I am my profession's calling card.
The Psalmist David spoke of being saved out of the pit for His name's sake. "What good will it do You if I go down into the pit? Will the dust praise You?" He says over and over that we are saved from disaster and given mercy because we are His children. But we are also saved because our salvation brings glory to Him. When we thrive, and tell an unbelieving and hurting world that we are thriving because of His grace, they begin to want what we have.
We are God's calling card. When we spread His word, we are asking others to take a leap of faith and surrender their lives to a God that they can't see, feel, or hear. The only thing they have to go by is us.
This is not to say we have to be perfect. To the contrary, it is how a believer handles MISTAKES that set them apart from nonbelievers. This means that we don't have the luxury of sulking, bearing grudges, and being angry just because it feels GOOD. We cannot use our newfound strength to judge and condemn those we disagree with. In the process of being made perfect in love, we must learn to love perfectly. That means everyone. That means muslims and white supremacists and murderers and stuck-up WASPS and ghetto girls and smug soccer moms and rough rednecks and giggling pre-teens and EVERYONE. A lot of well-meaning Christians I know seperate themselves from the groups and sub-groups that irritate or unsettle them, saying "I love them, I just refuse to condone their behavior."
News flash, guys. A person's behavior is part of who they are. It has to be faced, addressed, treated as one would treat a wound. If they're going to trust this treatment to someone else, that someone better show a love that says "I'm not going to do anything to make this wound worse. I just want to make it go away so that you can be whole."
We have to act differently if our lives are EVER going to make a difference to a worn and weary world. Girls, be ladies, not just graceful and grace-filled, but active and useful. So many women of God waste all their time chasing after men, thinking that they will never be whole until they have a wedding ring on their fingers. "That special someone" won't fill you up or help you cope or make you whole. That's Jesus's job, and He will do a beautiful job, but only if you let Him. Asking some poor unsuspecting guy to make you spiritually complete is unfair and completely unrealistic.
Guys, man up. Be leaders. Stop backing down from the fight. Unbelieving men do that. It's no longer in your job description to be a pacifist. We girls need you to stand up and be the leaders you were called to be as men. We'll start backing you up the minute we see something to back, I promise.
It's time to let Jesus occupy us and start living life to the fullest. Look your friends, believers and unbelievers in the eye with the confidence that can only come from being perfectly loved, and treat them with the respect and humility that can only come from a forgiven sinner who has been crushed beneath the mercy of a God that, for some unknowable, unfathomable reason, chose us to represent His perfection.