Little Ones

As some of you know, Ive worked in the NICU as part of my job. I LOVE IT! I was with all the healthy babies so it was not stressful at all. It is very quiet, compared to the ICU. For 2 hours I sat in a rocking chair and fed one little boy his bottle and just held him as he slept. It was actually relaxing, which is rare on the job of course. But more than that, it's very rewarding. They cant do anything themselves so they are fully reliant on you; it makes you feel needed and important. Holding a 7 lb bundle in my arms is soooo fun. They are so precious!

What Are You Thinking?

Most of our unhappiness in life is due to the fact that we are listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves. Just think of a scenario....the minute your alarm clock goes off you're thinking, make it stop! and hit the snooze. Then you remember what day it is and all you have to do and think you're better off in bed. But you throw your feet over the side of the bed anyways. As you sit there, you think of what all went wrong yesterday. As you shuffle to the cold bathroom floor, you begin to question the conversations you had yesterday and whether everyone was still happy with you or not. As your standing in the shower thinking of everything that lies ahead of you, you tell yourself that you need to pray. The only problem is, there's no time to pray! Does God feel kinda distant?
To prevent this, we need to speak positively to ourselves. Constantly praying thanks to God and asking Him for guidance. Be others focused instead of self-centered. Have a joyful heart!

A Day in the Life of

This week Ive felt like a mad woman running here, there, and everywhere doing well....you know the things that we do. :) Every night when I fall into my bed, I cant even think! I guess thats how its supposed to be right. I worked a TREMENDOUS amount this week but tis a good thing :) However, especially at the hospital, when ive been there a while and i have 3 drs orders, call lights going off, phone ringing, pharmacy tube dinging, vital phone buzzing, and nurses wanting my help "just for a minute"........ALL AT THE SAME TIME i feel like screaming :) I have never screamed out loud thank goodness, but sometimes under my breath i let out a quiet squeal just to keep me sane. I have truly found out that i have to pray for patience EVERY SINGLE DAY. God probably laughs at me when all those electronics are going off and im about to lose it, but i know its just to help me grow. Today was no different.......
I worked both at ChickfilA and the hospital....a total of 10 hours. At ChickfilA i worked drive thru so it wasnt really that bad. You do have those few costumers who kinda throw you off your tracks a bit. For example, we have this deal that last month for two days we handed out blue receipts and then this month you can redeem the receipt for the same dollar amount of food. Well this lady in drive through ordered $37 worth of food; that's a big ticket for drivethru. She pulls up to the window and said that she had a receipt, but she was looking for it in her purse. I assumed, like any other person, that she understood our deal. Instead she pulls out a Wal-Mart receipt. Wal-Mart?! I told her that it was in fact a Wal-Mart receipt. She obviously had no problem with it. She said, "I know I bought those items on the same monday as the deal last month if you look at the date." Trying hard not to laugh, I explained to her what it really meant, but she wasnt quite happy with me. Oh well, she made me smile :)
Then off to the hospital. I was actually looking forward to it because saturdays are usually pretty slow; not today! We got a new patient right when I got there which is always hard and confusing to jump right into; and he was a handful which was not helpful. We didnt have a secretary, so I had to be a tech and sec, which i dont know really how you're supposed to do that but i somehow managed it...barely :) Call lights NEVER went off. Then when I got to sit down to work on the new patient chart, one patient screamed. I went into her room and her jello spilled ALL OVER her and her bed; her red jello. Never mind that i just gave her a bath, never mind that i just changed her bedding, never mind i just put a new gown on her; everything was splattered red and sticky. She felt bad but still. After cleaning up the jello, back to the dr order which was now four drs orders. About ten minutes before I was getting ready to leave I sat down to eat my pretzels being so thankful that my shift was almost up. Then we got a trauma; a motorcycle wreck. Yeah, it was a mess, so I stayed an extra hour. All I can say is I felt really bad for the nurses that had to be there for 12 hours today :)
Although the hospital is not always fun, it certainly does have it's perks. The other day I went to Home Hospital for two hours and held and fed a baby. It was relaxing and so much fun. There were so many cute babies in that nursery! Its a great feeling to be there and just baby them and give them 100% attention. You never know what their childhood will be like. So even though my job may be stressful at times, I definitely love it!

Open Your Eyes

So God gave us our eyes for a purpose....obviously. But we mostly use our eyes for the wrong reasons. In summary, God gave us our eyes to look out instead of in. What do I mean? Well, most of the time we concentrate too much on ourselves instead of looking out for others' interests and needs. This statement does not mean to ignore yourself, because we constantly have to be examining our hearts. It does mean that most of us dont take enough time out of day to serve others. OPEN YOUR EYES! :)

A Precious Gift Taken for Granted

Every Morning you are given 24 golden hours. They are the only things that I can think of in this world that you get free of charge. Even if you had all the money in the world you couldn't buy an extra hour. What will you do with this priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted, you cannot get it back. What will you do with the time that is left? :)

My 360

So i told you all i would keep you posted on my future decisions and college plans. i have decided to drop the athletic training major and not pursue lee university. Why? Well, there are lots of reasons :) I have wanted to be an athletic trainer for a long time, but for the past 6 months several things have pointed out the fact that maybe athletic training isnt for me. While this was happening, my stubbornness came out and i told myself that no matter what i was going to fulfill my goal as trainer. Sadly, the thing that was motivating me the most was proving something to myself. No one in my family has gone into the medical except for my uncle and aunt on my dad's side, so i was determined to be different. I finally came to grips with reality and considered any other options the world may have to offer. I still enjoy sports and the training aspect of it, so I didnt want to give that up totally. Also, this fall I coached the JV volleyball girls at Faith and really enjoyed it. I have decided to major in phys ed and take some coaching classes on the side. To my surprise, phys ed has a lot of the same classes that athletic training had listed in its courses, so Im really excited. Since my major is more common now, there are many more Christian colleges out there for me to choose from; I am hoping to transfer next year to Bethel up near South Bend. Im very excited about my new plans for life, so we'll see how things go from here :)

Reincarnation

So today I was in my beloved philosophy class......oh dear; that's all i have to say. We discussed this week about the soul and body and how the brain and mind are two different things and so on. All I have to say is my professor has a pretty interesting philosophy up his sleeve. Today he presented an argument that just appalled me; I was stunned that someone who was so smart would actually believe something so crazy.
This is his argument of soul and body union: Your soul exists before you were born, so you can have thoughts before you were born because the soul and mind are the same thing. When you are born, the body and soul crashes together and become one. If the body remembers something from the soul's "past life" then the soul and body did not crash hard enough. When you remember things throughout life, it is a result of doing things consistently in the souls "past life". When the body dies, the soul separates and keeps living, waiting to inhabit another body.
WEIRD! When he was done, all I could do to keep from laughing was to smile. He sensed that I was not satisfied with his view and asked what I thought of it. HA! If he only knew :) Of course I thought it was absolutely bogus, and stated my point....
You cannot have thoughts before you were born, you cant even remember things from when you were two. So the whole body soul crashing thing; yeah, that's a little strange. We remember things because we are taught things and our brain and muscles store it. Our souls do have an after life, but it does not involve inhabiting another being; it involves existing in either heaven or hell. I proposed my view, and he did not agree with all of it. I did not expect him to accept all of it, but he did say that some of it may be proven to be somewhat correct at some point in time. Just another day in the life :)

What Shall I Do Then?

Last night in my devotions, the author that I was reading posed a very interesting question. Whenever a person reads through the crucifixion and resurrection story of Christ it gets more familiar every time you read it and sometimes you tend to skim. But last night a part of the passage stuck out to me differently than it ever has before (with the author's help :) ) In Matthew 27:22, Pilate asks, "What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ?" In context he is talking to the angry mob obviously, but we must ask ourselves this question everyday in everything we do. Will we serve Him or ourselves? Will we put Him on the shelf or make Him #1 in our lives?

Pulling a 360?

So for the past two years I have been pretty sure where I want to go off to college and what I want to major in. Over the last two weeks, God has been putting little things in my life that have been showing me that maybe my plans may not be for me. I know I want to go to a Christian college,but my major that I have had prior is very rare among Christian schools. I wanted to go into athletic training, but there are only three colleges total (secular and private) in indiana that have that major. I wouldnt mind leaving indiana, but im not so keen on moving across the country either. Today I am going to school to take an aptitude test; it supposedly analyzes you and suggests some other majors that maybe one had never thought about before that they would be interested and good at. We'll see how it goes, and I'll keep you all posted; please pray that I will keep an open mind to all possibilities!