Little Details

                   So, I might be a little controlling in some areas…  

           I like things to be done a certain way.  

But it’s funny the things that I let slip by.  For being such a detail oriented person, I seem to miss a lot.  

It is so easy to get stuck in the motion of a day that I focus on all the wrong details while missing all the right ones.  I can work the floor all day, in and out of patients’ rooms and see the tasks left undone.  I can feel overwhelmed by checklists and hardly stop to know who I am doing them for.  I have heard some of the most incredible life stories, usually in what I had thought were the most inopportune times.   

                                  And it’s not the work left undone I remember.  

The moment’s that touch my heart the most are from the smallest detours in the checklist.  I have been told that the biggest moment in one individual’s day was the smallest break in time for a short prayer together. 

    It is so easy to miss the small stuff but it is very much the biggest stuff in the long run.  

I was recently reminded of a book I read some time ago called “1,000 Gifts” by Ann Voskamp.  In it, the author lays out an idea put into action of tracking all these small gifts that fill out the day giving it meaning.  

These are the gifts God has left us for our sanity, and how easy it is to observe them and never take note of the gift that it was.  I started tracking these for myself, and even when looking back at days I know were very hard, even on those days there have been so very many blessings.  Bright crisp moonlit nights, whipped cream sticking to my nose, sister-friends singing harmonies.  From the harder days came off key Christmas carols by the chemo nurses, baby toe peeking out from an old sock, and long drives with miles of fields rolling by as far as the eye can see. 

Thanksgiving a few weeks behind, and Christmas a few in the future brings these moments of thanksgiving to mind along with thoughts of family.  I am stunned by all the family my heart is drawn to at this now.  Those in my house, and in my parent’s house; the family in friends; and homesickness for a family I’ve mostly not even met yet.  I wonder from these warm blankets what the Christmas without snow will look like for my family nearly 2,000 miles from here.  Even in this, it is hard to focus on the small details instead of the big distances.

 

    

1,224 musical tones from ventilators

          1,225 city of Christmas lights

                    1,226 fuzzy head of almost baby hair

I am focused on getting to Guatemala, but God has been reminding me time and time again to remember the details.  Not the important ones like timing, or checklists, but the unimportant ones like elevator conversations with strangers.  But I think we might have it backwards.  What really matters?  Because it’s not the measurable, but rather the unmeasurable. 

1,227 making the connection through corn and farming talk

           1,228 pathetic snowman facing warmer weather

So, that is where I am right now.  I am working and gaining experience in far more than just nursing skills.  I am going to school to enrich the care I give in the hospital, and in the home.  And I am raising awareness for what God has been doing in the heart of Guatemala.    

Please continue to remember me in your prayers as you remember the ministry and the many, many families giving and recieving the love of Christ.  

            There it is.  

                   Trying to be enraptured by this moment while racing on to the next.  

1,229 line of kids jumping off the last step of the bus

               1,230 dietary tech whistling Christmas tunes down the hall

                                1,231 watching my first nephew grow   

                                                  Thank you God for these many moments.

The Waiting Game

http://www.reallifeanswers.org/2011/11/27/
marshmallow-woes-and-willpower/

So, I kinda feel like the little kid in the famous marshmallow experiment.  The child is given one marshmallow, and told that they may either eat that one marshmallow right now, or wait just 15 minutes and revive a second marshmallow.  So the child sits on both hands, rocks back and forth, looks everywhere except the marshmallow, and in some cases, even smells the marshmallow. 

Often, they cave in and eat it having lost all self-control in the matter.  Some children made it to the end of the 15 minutes and were rewarded with the promised second marshmallow. 

I’m like those kids.  I have a lot to learn about patience.  I know how dangerous it is to admit that, but it is true.  But I’m not alone.  There are others who are told “Just wait a little longer and you’ll receive the promise I gave you!”  Abraham was one of these.  In Genesis 12:1-3, he was promised so much more than the great amount of possessions he currently owned.  He waited until he was very old, and sure enough, he reaped the reward. 

And what of David?  God told him 'I do not like how Saul ignores me although I made him king over My people, so I am giving his whole kingdom to you.'  But what happened the very next day?  David was out again with the sheep for a while longer.  When a war finally did come up, he was left at home while his promised kingdom was led still by Saul.  After he came in and saved the army by defeating the undefeatable Goliath, he sat in the presence of the king who remained on the throne promised to David.  He fought battles, became a war hero, and was hunted by the king and chased by his own kingdom.  And still he waited.  He had dozens of chances to seize control of the throne, yet he waited for God’s timing.  20 years he waited.  20 years is a long time to wait for a promise.  Did God forget?  Or did he change his mind?  What’s wrong?  Nothing.  God used the sheep, the battles, the leadership, the exile and the patience and faith in God to prepare David for the ruling of a nation precious to God. 1 Samuel 16:1, 13, 21, 17:45-47, and so on.   

I don’t like waiting.  I’d have been one of the children who took the first marshmallow and been done with it.  I know where I need to be though; waiting.  Waiting is training.  Just as I still need lessons in being still in my quiet time with God, I need to step back and let him move in my life now lest I open my eyes and start walking by sight again. 

Waiting has a lot of little pit stops along the way.  This is part of being patient.  Last week I had the opportunity to be a counselor at Camp Wilder, a camp for Jr. high students.  I have been a counselor before for kids at our denomination’s church camp at Ludlow Falls, but never with kids I did not know, and other counselors whom I had, for the most part, never met.  But what a thing it is to be right in the middle of a God movement! You would be a fool to walk into a setting where you are allegedly a leader helping others to grow and NOT think that you would learned every bit and more of what your students were learning.  Wow God.  Ok, I’ll wait.  You lead and I’ll follow.  That’s how it works right?  Maybe at some point I’ll finally get this down. 

The first domino

I’m not so great with words.  I’m not writer; I’m not very fluid with the words flowing out of my mouth or onto a page.  “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with action and truth.”

There is so very much that I do not know.  The only think I know is whose child I am.  1 John 3:1 says “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”  I can feel the excitement emanating from these words.  He lavished this love on us!  How can we even comprehend this love of God himself?

A few weeks ago I pushed the first domino and I can only wonder why I did not do this sooner.  At the time I wrote these words: “What took me so long?  I can be so blind when I am trying to see with my eyes.  I have been so worried about this that I looked right past your blazing sign.  I started out blindly walking that you would guide my feet.  When did I open my eyes and start controlling those steps?  I brought on a lot of pain by doing that.  All I need to know is whose child I am.  And here comes the peace.” 

 I was talking about my decision to move to Guatemala and join Hope for Home Ministries.  I have visited Guatemala twice now, and both times I found that I promised myself that I would come back.  How amazing that God is bringing me back to where I left part of my heart?

So, although I hated nursing school with a fiery passion, I knew why I was supposed to be there.  I thank God for that because I would have quit many times over if I did not have specific faces in my mind.  I am a nurse now, and I have no ties on my life.  How gracious God is to make it as simple as that, an opportunity coinciding with a calling. 

So, I am scrapping my 5 year plan because that plan put too many limits on a limitless God.  I can’t wait to see how God moves now that those walls are removed! 

I have already been told that this is crazy, that I have so much potential here and why on earth would I leave opportunities here to go so far away from home.  I will admit that those words gave me pause.  What am I doing?  Do I really want to leave all of my connections here?  To go where I know a handful of people, a glimpse of the culture and a few sentences of the language?  But where could I possibly go but the palm of my Father’s hand.  If this is crazy, then I want to be certifiable. 

I know that there are a lot of new things coming up, but the harder they are the more God is letting me trust Him.  One of these is raising support.  I have never done this, and quite frankly, I think this will be the least pleasant aspect.  But already God is moving.  I spoke with some friends at a bible study on Sunday night, and that night two doors were opened.  I also mailed out letters that I would rather not have mailed, and before they would have reached the sorting center and been sent back to local post offices, I have received word of a couple who wishes to help sponsor me, from a direction I never thought to look.  I thought I was jumping and praying that He would catch me.  I find that he never let go. 

So That’s it right there, I want to be so far gone in Christ that nothing else will do, I want to be lost in Him. 

God bless

~Katie~