Why I do what I do...

I was talking with some of my teacher friends the other day about the upcoming school year. Somehow the issue of salary came up (I think I was having to explain why I am still going to work so much at the hospital during the school year). It's true, teachers aren't paid nearly enough and it doesn't get better the higher the education you happen to teach! I really had to sit and think for a moment why I'm about to sign this contract or why anybody does for that matter. It's obviously not for the money. Maybe that that's what makes teachers so incredible, they do what they do because they love it (or at least some of the time) and/or God told them to do it.
Somebody once told me that teachers are really some of the only people who get the opportunity to make an impact everyone in the entire the world. I suppose indirectly there is some truth to that.
This morning I had a breakfast with one of my former students. We talked about her first job, her first death, her future hopes of grad. school and becoming an educator... Now I remember, this is why I worked so hard to become a real teacher. So, thank you to all of my teacher friends who prayed for me and encouraged me throughout grad school. I'm excited to join the ranks!
You gotta love 'em!

Pink Kool Aid (Part 2)

No, I didn't want to run away. I wanted to stay, to sit a corner and to work/pray through anything and everything that came up. I wanted to let myself be angry at the "joy robbers" or to a least feel something and do so in a safe place. Why didn't that happen then? Why couldn't I have just stayed, prayed and sought the Lord?
Granted I had a prior commitment I needed to honor, but did I miss the point of why God had brought me there by keeping it? I don't get it, I thought I was ready for something and now I find myself waiting again. I know this can't just be a mean trick but sometimes it feels like it.
In some ways I feel like the lame man who waits each day by the Pool of Bethesda but never makes it to the water in time be healed. The man waited 38 years for what seems in some ways to be a rather anticlimactic moment. Jesus walks up to him and says "Take up thy bed and walk." So what does he do but get up and proceed to walk off carrying his mat. I've got to be missing something here...
Is the Pink Kool Aid perhaps fear and doubt? Could I myself be accused to drinking the Pink Kool Aid?

Pink Kool Aid

It was Saturday night and there was no sleep to be had. My body was calm but my mind was restless. Could God really be telling me to drive to Portland?!? Indeed He was... When I could stand it no longer, I got up, got dressed (in a green skirt no less) and left the house at 0530.
After so some amount of dawdling, I arrived at the dreaded camp meeting at 0915. Afraid to just randomly saunter right onto the campus, I called Angela and asked her to walk outside. I'll bet she didn't expect to see me standing there! As we walked into the office I was immediately "greeted" by Angela's mom who was practically in tears. I must admit that I was too but for vastly different reasons. Apparently word travels fast with the AF crowd because it wasn't long before I was seeing other folks I knew coming out of the woodwork. It would seem that there is quite the text messaging chain...
Later on that morning as Angela and I walked about the campground on "official business" I couldn't help but think that the place reminded me of some type of internment camp. The 1 room cabins which had no windows and were about 2 feet from eachother, the fenced compound, the codes on the gates... All these things add to the story but they weren't the real reason for the fear and trembling.
Poor Lindsey was the one who had to sit next to me during church service. As long as she wasn't looking at me, I was "fine." Actually, the whole experience was more difficult than anticipated but oddly enough I didn't want to run away...

Earning a Living

I'm sitting here at work lulled into a sort of semi-conscious state by the rhythmic sound of my patients ventilator feeling slightly burned out streaming Spanish worship music on youtube to combat the post Mexicali blues. I can't help but think about how much it stinks sometimes trying to "earn a living." It's funny what we put ourselves through all in the name of earning a living, the time we lose, the gray hairs we get, the elevated blood pressures, the ulcers, and the list goes on... Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we shouldn't have jobs and pay our bills but to think that we can somehow "earn a living?" No, I'm not really talking about the whole salvation by works thing; I'm talking about the innate tendency to we have to feel like we need to constantly be doing things to legitimize our very existence.
I often think about this in regards to my patients. I wonder how they must feel about thier own lives when thier minds and bodies couldn't possibly be capable of "earning a living." The truth is that we can't earn the right to live or the right to exist and we cerntainly can't earn LIFE. All these things are a gift; if we could only live them as such.
While "youtubing" some Spanish worship music I came across this song "Razones Pa'Vivir" (Reasons to Live) which I have heard many times before but never truly listened hard enough to figure out the words. Translated it says something like this (I think):

You have given me so much
I cannot express my gratitude
I cannot tell of all you have done for me
You give me love, you give me peace
You took from your plentitude
In order to fill me with your light
My heart is blessed to live this way
Your blessing has touched my existance

I have reasons to live
I have songs to write
I have a voice and I have a heart
I have a Way to follow
I have love to share
I have a voice and a heart

You have inundated me with your love
With understanding and compassion
With your care and with your warmth
Every morning I can see
When I breathe I can see the sun
You are always faithful
My heart is blessed to live this way
Your blessing has touched my existance

Divine Cardiology (Part 2) Don't Lose Heart

About a year ago I had a phone conversation with an old high school friend who happens to be a physician. She had told me about a book she was reading called "Waking the Dead" by John Eldridge. She highly recommended that I read. I finally picked up a copy at the book store a few weeks later, but not being much of a reader I never made it past the 40th page.

The night before we left Kigali Naomi and I were chatting in room when somehow that book made it into our conversation. Ironically I had packed the book in my carry on while in Seattle but I hadn't cracked it the entire trip. Now I had to read that book! I am glad that I did...

It must say that I found it quite thought provoking. There were a few things that "made me go hmm," but overall what I got from it was worth the "hmm."

In the first chapter of the book the author makes this quote by St. Irenaeous; "God's glory is man's heart fully alive." He goes on to make the point that once we have made a confession to follow Christ, we have a "circumcised" heart. The evil is stripped away and we have a new heart, a good heart. God in fact loves our heart so much that He died for it. He wants our hearts to be "alive" and healthy. God's desire is for us to live in wholeness a victorious life. Wow, God loves my heart because He made it good? God thinks my heart is worth fighting for? That's quite a powerful concept if it is indeed true.

The author then discusses the idea of spiritual warfare. If our hearts have been made "good" (I think this the idea of sanctification for all you AF folks out there) then of course the Devil is going to target you. We need to be able to prepared and equipped to fight for our own hearts and our relationship with our Lord. Because He has made me in His image and has redeemed my heart I do not need to go life ashamed and bound to the thought that no matter what I do I'm going to mess it up. After all, in my weakness He is made strong.

Don't lose heart because you'll miss it when it's gone! You're heart really is something worth fighting for.

Divine Cardiology (Part 1)

I was in nursing school sitting in an unidentified class with a particularly long winded professor when I suddenly broke into a cold sweat and grew very pale. My table partner, being very perceptive, noticed my plight right away and told me to leave class that she would share her notes. Similar episodes, sometimes accompanied by chest pain, continued to happen from time to time for several years.
As a nurse in cardiothoracic intensive care this happened several times while at work. It wasn't until two years ago however, that one of the charge nurses was on to me. She would see me rolling around my patients room in my computer chair looking like "death on cracker." It wasn't until she threatened not to let me come to work that I finally saw a cardiologist.
I wore an EKG monitor constantly for an entire month and even had to print my own strips. Of course as a cardiology nurse I also analyzed them but I found myself stumped right along with the cardiologist. The rhythm abnormalities didn't appear to follow any sort of usual pattern. The options were an invasive heart procedure which could possibly end in a pacemaker or a trial of a host of cardiac medications. The drugs helped a little at first but unfortunately also caused a very slow heart rate. For over a year we tried but couldn't find the answer. Fortunately, though symptomatic, the arrhythmias are self limiting. But I continued with my crazy schedules and stressful lifestyle and thus continued to mistreat my heart. I don't think I was entirely convinced that it was worth taking care of. Eventually, the cardiologist and I decided that because we couldn't find anything that "worked" and because the rhythms were not life threatening, we would discontinue care and ride it out for as long as possible.
Unfortunately the episodes were disruptive enough cause some hesitation in what activities I chose to participate in. I finally quit working on my beloved ambulance because I was afraid that one day "the thing" would happen at just the "wrong time." Worse yet, somebody might find out about my "broken heart."
Everyday I go to work, I see broken hearted people. I fill them full of drugs, shock them, manually pump their blood, pace them, etc... None of those things are really able to cure them, they are just meant to hold them over. In reality my patients are cardiac cripples. What most of them really need is a new heart, a good heart.
To be continued...

Hiding

I’m hiding in my classroom, it’s hard to explain… I came to Africa to teach. Yes, I have been teaching and yes, they have been learning. However, unfortunately they are not doing. This morning I was supposed to teach a class but there was some sort of “miscommunication” and now it’s not happening. We’ve lost so much time over miscommunications like this.
Since Naomi and I now have our morning free, we decided to work in various wards of the hospital. Naomi went to maternity and I rounded on our bus accident boy who was now in the ICU. He is doing a little better than expected but still not out of the woods yet. After ICU rounds I went up to the emergency room. I found a very emaciated man lying in a bed with a severe oxygen deficit. The oxygen machine was there but it was not on him. I turned on the machine and placed the mask over his face. I took his vital signs and listened to his chest with my stethoscope. He needs IV fluids and some laboratory studies.
The nurse finally came so I asked him what was wrong with the man but he didn’t understand. He gave the man some oral medication and some water which of course he promptly vomited back up. He showed severe wasting which was probably due to end stage HIV. I tried again to explain that the man needed fluids but both the doctor and nurse closed themselves into another room with a patient less sick.

I would have started doing all the tasks myself if I thought I could find the supplies. But in reality what is it going to do? Is it worse for me who knows what to do to be in inactive, to not do those things out of fear and/or frustration and not wanting to make trouble for my hosts? Should I be trying harder to communicate? Do I need to be more aggressive.
Here, I am a consultant. But I am one who likes and needs to consult and debrief with others. It’s not very easy to do here. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even OK to do this. Should I be ashamed for thinking these thoughts? Am I displaying “ineffective individual coping” for needing to discuss this? Am I worth less as a teacher, a nurse, or a “missionary” if I can’t make taking action a part of my teaching? So… I hide in my empty classroom feeling like an imposture.
Don’t worry I know that this is all part of growing and learning how God use us even when we .feel our efforts are futile. ;)