Working Exhaustion

I am exhausted.
I have not slept straight through the night in about two weeks.

:(

It's my new migraine medication that the neurologist put me on three weeks ago. Ever since I upped the dosage like I was supposed to, I am not sleeping well. I have these awful bags under my eyes. yuck. The doctor finally gave me something to help me sleep until this side effect hopefully wears off, so I did sleep last night pretty well.

Anyways, I am at work, being exhausted. I've been coming home and just flopping on the couch the last three days. I have not done anything much in the last few days.

The only thing I did do, I decided I was tired of.

NO MORE WEDDINGS!

Crazy brides, stressed out bridesmaids, all the little details, yes or no, now or later, flowers, pictures, lighting, smile! I'm done. DONE DONE DONE.

Yesterday made my 5th wedding that I helped out at/was in, in the past 12 months.

So there you go. Not much of an interesting post, but maybe someday when I've slept better, my life will be more interesting. :)

I'm in Dishwasher Heaven

I finally have a dishwasher! No more smelly, nasty, moldy dishes clogging up my sink every day of the week.

Instead - ta-da!

They can be automatically washed with this handy-dandy washer machine!

(really. it's amazing)









This cute little cow tells you when the dishes are dirty and when they are clean!


(it's from my mom)

:)








There it is in all it's glory.


sigh.


I'm in heaven.

He is well able

Sometimes, I forget how big God really is.

I get really bogged down by everything I have to do, the standard to which I think everything should be done, expectations and responsibilities I place on myself, people I should see, friends I should call, dreams and goals and all the little things that make up everyone's life! There is always a lot of things to do and not enough hours in the day to do them. Often, it leaves me feeling frustrated and defeated by the end of the day.

That's the kind of week I had this past week. Just overwhelmed, tired, frustrated and just dry spiritually. All used up. At some point on Thursday, I just stopped and told God exactly how I was feeling. It wasn't very pretty, but it was necessary.

Almost immediately, this phrase came to mind: He is well able.

My mind flashed back to a time during the Honor Academy. It was the weekend and that week had gone similar to the week I just experienced. We were all in school buses driving to the Grand Canyon. I was journaling because I was really just too irritated with everything to inflict myself on others by talking to them. I was in the middle of complaining and worrying about something to the Lord when we pulled up beside the Canyon wall. The conversation in my head went something like this.

God: Look out out the window.
Me: Wow. The Grand Canyon is HUGE. More than huge. Bigger than I thought it would be.
God: Kristen, as big as the Grand Canyon is, I am bigger.
Me: But-
God: I am bigger.

It only took three seconds to communicate all that, but the message was clear. God is bigger than me, bigger than the Grand Canyon, bigger than every single one of my problems, frustrations and worries.

He is bigger.
He is well able and willing.

I needed that this week.

Jesus

"1 Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4 Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.

9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.

11 After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied ;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.

12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors."

- Isaiah 53 (NIV)

Enjoy Him today.
He delights in you.

He is risen.

I love my mom

I love my mom.

She's pretty amazing.
She's sweet, kind, patient, beautiful, sassy, particular about some things, easy going about most things, generous, loving, a professional marathon shopper and my mom.

I can't express to you how blessed I was to be raised and loved by this woman. :)

My mom and I hang out a lot, she's been stuck home for a week straight taking care of my sick step-dad (he's getting better), and I needed a new Easter outfit. What else to do but go shopping?

We shopped until our feet were about to drop off (I'm serious!). :)

At one point, I got a shirt stuck around my head trying to get it on and I started yelling, "help, help!" My mom started laughing and trying to pull it off, but she couldn't get it off!! My face was turning red, I was laughing hysterically at this point and my mom was bent over laughing so hard. We finally found a zipper and got it off. Our faces were bright tomato red! It was hilarious. (!!!) I love my mom so much. We think alike.

All in all we went in to almost every store in the mall, with a break for coffee in the middle so we could have enough energy to continue shopping. White chocolate mocha with whipped cream on top - YUM!

Oh yeah, the picture above? I needed a smaller size in a dress that I was trying on. Problem was, the only small was on the manequin. I looked at my mom, she looked at me, smiled and said, "I'll be right back." When she came back into the dressing room she was carrying the MANEQUIN! She didn't just take the dress off of it, she brought the whole thing in!!! I started laughing again. Really loudly. Yes, this is my mother.

We had so much fun. I'm going up to her house to spend Easter with her.
Home is where family is and home is good for my heart.
I love my mom.

Heart Wrenchers

I encountered two things today that made my heart sick.

1. A "Non-Accidental Trauma" (NAT) case I was assigned to today.
2. A girl named Raisa in a ministry I support and love called Stella's House in Moldova, was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Ugh.

First of all, NAT makes me sick to my stomach. If you are not catching on to what this means, let me paint it out for you. A child who has an injury or trauma that was NOT an accident. In other words, a child who was purposefully hurt by someone else, who probably knew better. (scream!!) How anyone can do this to anyone else is beyond my comprehension and it makes me sick inside.

My case today was, at the end of the day, ruled an actual accident, but I'm still not convinced because of the odd nature of this child's injuries. I guess we'll just see if the kid ends up back in our ER with another mysterious illness. I hope not.

Secondly, this girl is part of an orphanage for those girls who are "too old" for the state-run orphanages. These girls would be turned out into the street with a bus ticket to their hometown and $30 on their 18th birthday, if they did not have Stella's House #1 and #2 to go to. For some reason, this ministry of girls has taken hold of my heart. If the Lord would let me move there, I'd already have gone. I weep for these girls and I'm not even sure why, as I've never met them, but the Lord has placed them strongly on my heart.

To hear that one of them is very ill with a disease that we treat commonly in the US, again, makes me sick to my stomach. Especially as she is sick in a fairly 3rd world country, healthcare wise. She is in a sanitarium for TB cases. You know, the isolation houses we used to send people to in the 1800's here in the US. Yeah, they still use those houses there. She is basically getting no appropriate medical support as they are now considering removing one of her lungs in an effort to help her past her illness. This operation will cripple an 18 year old girl for the rest of her life. And it's not necessary. It's just not necessary.

I wish I could pick up all the sick people in the world and bring them to good health care where our biggest worry is nurses and doctors not washing their hands. I never have to worry whether a medication I need, or clean needles, or safe filtering equipment for a TB patient is available. It's here. And it makes me want to cry that a girl I love is suffering needlessly.

So, tonight dear friends, are you not glad we serve a God who is our Healer? I am glad tonight that my God is ready, willing and more than able to heal both of these children that have touched my heart tonight.

Won't you pray with me tonight? Pray for my NAT child and Raisa. Both need Father God to step into their lives in protection and healing. Pray for whatever and whomever else the Lord has chosen to burden your heart with, just pray.

There is power in our prayers.

He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Matthew 17:20

Just a thought

Paging through Proverbs tonight. (I am doing last minute prep work for a class on leadership I am teaching tomorrow.) Found several great verses. This one really stuck out to me. I had it underlined with notes written next to it. Here it is.

"A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord."
- Proverbs 19:3

Ugh. It just hit me, right in the chest. How many times do we sin, mess things up in our lives, and then yell at the Lord because our life is hard?

::get out small soapbox::

The Word of God really is living, breathing, and active. It is just as applicable today as it was 2,000 years ago. I love the Word, it just stirs something inside of me when I read it. I just remember HOW GREAT the Lord truly is and it makes me smile. And it's TRUE! (I get excited about that part as well.) The Word of God is TRUE. (!!!)

::step off small soapbox::

Ok, I'm done and it's time to go back to working. Hope you enjoyed that!

Highly Important Blog

Come with me on an adventure. One that takes us to a land far far away (okay, Canonsburg). A land where they build America's Drive In Restuarant.....duh duh da!

SONIC!

Today, my friend Bethany and I went to Sonic. Here is the view from my car window.

Oh my goodness! All this yummy stuff to choose from. Shall I have a Cream Pie Shake or a Slushie, or a Limeaid, or a Toaster Sandwich, or a Sunrise Shake or a Sonic Blast? (Cheesy tots were never in question. I was getting those.)


YAY! This is me with my carefully selected food choices. A Sonic Jr . Burger with cheese, a regular order of cheesy tots and a Strawberry Limeaid. (and my tummy smiles)


Bethany was pretty happy, too.


The beloved Cheesy Tots.


My tummy is about to smile here as the cheesy tot heads towards my mouth!


Ahhh. Two girls, a long long way from home (ok a 1/2 hour!) smile in appreciation at the North, who has finally decided that it likes Sonic, even though it snows a lot here. Oh yeah.

The End!

Global Warming

So, at Ground Level tonight, a student put this question in our "Question Box" that our youth pastor answers every week before he preaches:

"Are you still a Christian if you believe in global warming?"

The answer was yes, as long as believing in it does not come before being concerned about what Jesus was primarily concerned about, aka His people.

It also made me think of two articles I had read on the Boundless Line blog.

Go check it out and let me know what you think about global warming.

I'm curious. After I will tell you what I think about it.

Overnights #2

Still at work.

Still have a screaming child, who is thankfully not next to me anymore. Different child from last night, but screaming none the less. He's been awake and unhappy since 4:15am. Note the time of this post. That would credit this child with an hour and forty-five minutes of straight screaming and crying WITHOUT falling asleep or throwing up.

Amazing. Really truly amazing. I did not know that was possible...but yet it is. The wonders of children never cease to amaze me.

I had the most loving moment tonight with another older child that I'm taking care of. She was sad today that I couldn't spend more time with her playing cards and then I put her to bed at midnight and she's been sleeping ever since. I went in and checked on her at 4am and realized that she was cold and all curled up in a ball. So, I went, got another blanket and tucked her in properly. I smoothed back her hair, put her head back on her pillow and made sure every foot and hand was tucked underneath the blankets. She'll wake up and I'll be gone and she won't know it, but I've watched over her all night, taking care of her. It made my heart happy and made me excited to be a mom. :)

Now, the screaming child on the other hand.....well, I'm just happy for nurse's aides who are willing to rock him when my shoulder is all used up from the kid's snotty tears, my arms ache from holding and my patience has worn thin.

My prayer tonight: Dear Jesus, PLEASE make this kid fall asleep. please. pleasepleaseplease.

Overnights and Holy Spirit

Okay, this is an overnight post.

I am at work, fighting to stay awake, and every little child who should be sleeping, but is not, does not seem so cute right now. I offered to switch places with them. They could go be the nurse, and I'd sleep, but this 11 month old right next to me didn't seem to like that idea very much. My 9 year old jumped at the chance, but I had to turn her down....she didn't know how to plug in the heart machine. Very important detail.

(Hey, I just looked down, the 11month old who has been screaming since midnight WENT TO SLEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

:)

Life has been good and busy lately.

Taught a class on Holy Spirit on Sunday, which went well. Honestly, I wish it had went better...sometimes it's hard to know if you are connecting, and it's hard to think of creative ways to make it all interesting. I mean, it's the Holy Spirit, so it's VERY interesting (and quite frankly amazing!), but at 11am, you've GOT to have something to wake them up. They were responsive, and ultimately, I have to trust the Lord with what He asked me to say, and then for the change in them from it. I've already had one student asking questions from her devotional, so that's good. That actually makes me REALLY happy. I love when others learn new things about the Lord.

I love when I learn new things about the Lord.

Today's Quote: "You never graduate from the school of God."
- Dave Hasz

My Hospital Stay

So, after years of working in a hospital, I finally (unfortunately) experienced being a patient in a hospital.

Let me tell you....that was odd.

I was admitted for abdominal pain and was there for about 36+ hours. Here are just some things I learned:

1. Not all nurses are bad nurses....I had only great nurses and doctors.
2. Surgeons really are their own special breed of people.
3. You really don't get ANY rest in a hospital. The longest I slept for one time overnight was 1 hour.
4. I understand why patients often feel misunderstood. It is very hard to accurately explain what you say and then what you meant, when you are tired and in pain.
5. That chicken broth I always encourage patients to drink....it's awful and disgusting. I will never recommend it again.
6. Hospital jello is NOT real jello...it's grosser.
7. If you get admitted to the hospital after an ER stay, you don't have to pay your co-pay. (YEAH!)
8. It's really SUPER boring in the hospital once you start to feel better. Everyone should have access to the internet.
9. The beds are surprisingly comfortable.
10. IV fluids make me get the chills....and there at not enough blankets in the world to make me feel warm.
11. I am an awful patient. I much prefer being the nurse.

So, now I'm home, resting. Getting over the "stomach virus" they decided that I must have picked up at Children's. I really need a better immune system. :)

I'm feeling better...still no appetite, belly still feels odd, but now I am getting bored. I really should start to be productive soon. My kitchen still has dishes that need done....lol.

Just to be honest

Sometimes there's nothing more that I can say to the Lord but, "I need you and I want you." Over and over again. I don't get tired of saying it, and I don't think He gets tired of hearing it. I want more of Jesus. Anything and everything He has to offer, I want. Really simple, nothing too crazy, but I want Jesus. I want to be more hungry for Him. I want to want more of Him everyday that I breathe. I want to experience Him everyday, not just on Wednesdays and Sunday's. I want His face, next to mine, breathing on me.

I want Him for me, for my church, for my students, for my family. We all need Jesus. Badly.

I want Jesus.

It's not a perfect want, but it's a want.
And for that I'm grateful to Him.

Ground Level tonight, my church's youth group, had 46 students attend. 44 of them came down to the altar to tell Jesus that they want more of Him in their lives. (!!!) Praise Him. For real. THAT is what I am talking about. More, Lord. More.

He's sooooooooooo good. And I love Him.
Again, I'm so grateful to Him, and if I had a better word than "grateful" I'd use it, but right now I don't. So I'm just grateful.

Modesty - What guys have to say about it

So, I saw this ad on another blog, and I went to check it out.

This is a survey made up of questions from girls on modesty in dress, attitude and body language that over 150,000+ guys answered in a survey format. It was very interesting. Click on the link, then click on survey results and see the guys answers in response to each question.

Go here.

Very interesting.

Let me know what you think.

Working Overnights

So, posts have been slow lately.

I've been enjoying time with the Lord while I had the time off from work this week. I did a bunch of fun things that I've been meaning to do (went to the movies, used my old-new blender and made smoothies, went shoppping)....AND I also did dishes, which was not as fun, but rather productive.

BUT anyways. I am now at work, working overnights. 7pm-7:30am. Amazingly hard after 3am. Not bad up until then...but at 3am, your brain shuts down in protest. For real.

Anyways, I am working 3 overnight shifts in a row this weekend...should be interesting. I'm very amusing to talk to after a 12 1/2 hour overnight shift as I drive home from work.

Sorry this post is so....what's the word...random. discombobulated. dysfunctional. It's ok, my brain is sleepy, and that's why.

:)

Thought for the Day: Why does it feel like I am walking on squishy jello when I am this tired?