Decisions by Faith

As I was reading my devotions this morning, God really spoke to me through the story of Abraham. God instructed Abraham to pack his bags and leave his home to a foreign land that God would show him. In his mind he may have been thinking " I am living a good life filled with blessing why is God instructing me to leave." Its so amazing to know that even when it was difficult to leave everything he knew he still was obedient to the Lord. And that's the high calling we have in Christ. God gave him promises, "I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great... in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed... All the land which you see I will give you and your descendants forever." (Genesis 12:2-3, 13:15)." These promises that the Lord had granted Abraham were far from reality yet he still walked by faith trusting the Lord. He faced trials, famine, enemies, war, personal failures, family feud's, 25 years of patiently waiting for a son, yet he still knew that the Lord was sovereign.
In my own life the Lord is leading me in a journey of faith. Sometimes its difficult but its a journey filled with joy and adventure knowing the Lord is in control. We make decisions everyday and these decisions need to be made by faith. A decision I made last summer by faith was to attend College to become a nurse. And now as I am facing trials and challenges within my clinical experience, it becomes so easy to question a previous decision made by faith. Even looking at Abraham's life he trusted the Lord when he journeyed from posperity to poverty and yet he still trusted the Lord. I know my Lord is faithful and I have no doubts in my mind that this was a decision by faith. God just threw a few obstacles in the way to build my character to be more like Christ's.

Learning from Mistakes

Wow. I thought clinical would be a nice break for me from studying but that was the wrong assumption. Getting up at 4:30 am is exhausting. Some days are overwhelming. And there are days when I feel like a complete failure at being a student nurse. Some mistakes I have made over the last two weeks have either made me cry or laugh. And I joke that "I could write a novel 500 pages long with all my mistakes." Today was one of those days where my colleagues stated frequently, "I'll bet you'll never make those mistakes again." For one, when I went to shave my patient I thought I was doing him a favor by putting shaving cream on his face. I thought without it it would for sure irritate his skin. Well needless to say he uses an electric razor and apparently your NEVER supposed to use shaving cream with an electric razor. I learnt that lesson very quickly!!! We also decided to take out his partial dentures so that we could clean his mouth, well we were unable to put them back in so we left the bottom ones out. I keep hoping that I'll remember all the mistakes I have made and learn from them.

One day I'll be a nurse...

... but for know I am a student nurse begining my first of my series of clinical practicums. I am at an extended care facility with approx. 50 Alzeimers patients on our wing. I am accompanied by 6 other students and an instructer. Having just finished my first week of clinical it is still very new and quite overwhelming. The first two days at this facility I assisted a nursing attendent in caring for 5 patients. Care involved bathing, brushing teeth, feeding the patients, and changing their briefs as needed. On Friday I was responsible for giving this care plus performing a head to toe assessment of my patient. It was quite the challenge. My friend, Megan from my church is working as an nursing attendent at this facility, that truly brightened my day. Just knowing that she has already done clinical as a student. She was just so encouraging and I knew she had faith in me that I am going to be a "quality nurse." To qualify to become a nurse you definitely need a servants heart filled with compassion and I felt like Megan saw that in me. Waking up at 4:30 am is not easy, however, when you realize that these patients are so dependent on you for care 4:30 am is no longer as early as it seems. The patients are dependent on you for survival plus dignity and as a student nurse I am responsible to provide them with quality care. Listening to these patients communicate without speech or limited words is a challenge. Its a huge responsibility... but I look forward to this challenge simply because I know it's going to develop my character.