This Week's Thoughts

I haven't been very good about keeping this blog up lately. As I look at my recent posts, there really hasn't been anything substantial for awhile. It's definitely not because there's been a lack of things to talk on my mind. Quite the contrary, I feel like my head has been so full of thoughts that I am not quite sure how to put them into any coherent kind of post. So every time I've pulled up my dashboard during the past week my attempt has failed within 5-10 minutes with me realizing that I'm exhausted and that I can't put anything together clearly enough that it would make any sense.
I'm still tired. I still probably can't make sense of things, but I'm determined not to close my dashboard until I've posted something and caught y'all up on a few things. So here we go.

Thought 1: Pride
How often do you find yourself tempted to fall into self-pity? It happens to me way more than I'd like to admit. And I mean, I have a really amazing life. If there were someone who you thought had a right to feel sorry for themselves, it wouldn't be me. And yet my pride over and over again produces in me this sense of entitlement that inevitably leads me to the thoughts and feelings that I "deserve" certain things. I've been doing this World Harvest study called Sonship with a group of girls from my church ( I should probably write women since we're all in our 20's and 30's but I still have a hard time thinking myself as a woman...women have kids and mortgages). It's quite possibly the most convicting study I've ever been a part of, but at the same time, the most hope instilling. Last night's study was on self-pity and pride. The combination of the study with Steve Huber's sermon on Genesis 28, plans and dreams and following the Lord Sunday morning left me extremely conscious, yet again, of how little I really trust God with my life. I constantly revert back to picking up the reigns over my own life, like I can somehow do a better job than God. As part of last weeks study, we had an assignment to identify a common surface (notable) sin that we fall into, then cite a couple recent examples of it. After recognizing the sin, we then looked into the motivation behind that action and how we were using the action to compensate in an area of our life where we weren't truly believing the Gospel. The sin I noted since it seems especially prevalent of late is my worrying about things in the future. I worry about things that are out of my control. I worry about silly things that really shouldn't even be a concern. And I recognize that at the root of that anxiousness is a fear that the future God has for me isn't going to be enough. That it isn't as good as the one I could plan for myself. I place my hope in my dreams above Christ and then find myself crushed, or anxious when life isn't working out the way I plan. How do I get over this pride of mine?! I feel like I could give myself the Sunday School answer- through prayer, being in the word, having accountable relationships....but I think the truth is, I'm always going to struggle with this. I'm daily going to have to recommit myself to believing God's promises. Any helpful thoughts on the topic are appreciated though!

Thought 2: The Disconnect of Worlds
After a meeting I attended with some folks from church on Monday and some thought provoking discussion, I've been thinking a lot about the disconnect of my many worlds. I live a compartmentalized life. Unless you're intentionally trying not to, I think it tends to just happen in modern day middle/upper class America. Once upon a time people worked in their hometowns, sent their kids to the same schools as their neighbors, shopped at local stores, and had cookouts and hangouts with those that lived around him. This isn't my life. I never see my neighbors. Only a couple of my "nursing school friends" and "church friends" have even met. Nobody in my life knows the families I'm babysitting for and I fill up my gas tank weekly to drive all of my many places. Money and transportation make it possible for the worlds we live, work, play, and study in to be almost completely separate from each other. And I think it also make us lonely, busy, and leads to that feeling of disconnectedness. With all these worlds we fit in, how easy does it become to lose track of one another? With all of these worlds to attend to, how easy does it become to lose track of ourselves? I struggle with knowing how to divide my time, how to pour into all my relationships, and how to live a life of simplicity when I have so many things going on in different places with different people. Thoughts of this have been on my mind all week. I want a life of connectedness. I want to have the energy to serve those around me. I want real community. So I'm gonna take some baby steps to try and bring my life together a little bit. Because of the fact that I have a lease, I'm not planning on dropping out of school, and I can't really bring my friends to work with me, there is not going to be a total convergence of things. But I would like to at least like to merge my friend groups a bit.

Thought 3: Finding my Calling
I began my peds clinicals at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia this week. I love it. Just walking into that building makes me happy! I've been in a lot of hospitals in the last few months, and usually after a couple of days I find myself thinking, "yeah, I wouldn't really want to work here."...such is NOT the case with CHOP. The hospital is light, colorful, clean, and full of things to play with:) Not to mention full of tons of cute kids. It is a welcoming cheerful environment, clean without feeling sterile, professional, while still being fun. I'm doing my rotation on a general pediatrics floor where we see kids from 28 days to 18 years old. Taking care of a totally adorable 7 month old yesterday I found myself enjoying the tasks that felt mundane and laborious when performed on 87 year old men during my med surg rotation. I'm in my element with the kids! Now I'm just trying to figure out where in the hospital I belong. The flavor of the week that I'm leaning toward is the Emergency Department. I've been wary of the ED because of the fear of seeing kids who've suffered serious trauma, but I keep turning back to it, reconsidering the possibility. Excitement, variety, challenge, and the chance to show God's love to bunches of kids. I can't wait to be a nurse!

Thought 4: I love my people. However did I get blessed with so many amazing folks?

Thought 5: It's time for The Office and I am stoked.

So there's a few of the things on my mind these days. Maybe my next post will be a little more focused :)