classes.
School has started, and I'm the happier for it - for the most part. There is a certain measure of ... anxiety that the depth of the subject matter entails. Most of the skills this semester are moderate-to-highly invasive procedures - from IVs to catheters. The subject matter is more invasive, too; we've gone from homeostatic baby-food ("see, this is all nice and normal, children!") to the nitty-gritty of pathologies ("we call 'em disease processes! grow up!"). We'll be looking at diabetes, COPD, hypertension, and a host of other 'pathophys-'issues, as well as working through the mental health module of the program. So... invasive procedures, mental health facilities, increased clinical hours - there's a lot of potential for amazingness, and a lot of potential for toughness. When it comes to nursing school, I'm not really sure there's a line between those two.
cold.
I've been enjoying the cold weather. Running in the snow is an absolute treat, even if my heart and head feel like they're about to asplode. I shall miss it, though I've had to confine myself to taking turns around the yard like Mr. Woodhouse from Emma, as the road has been far too slick to get enough traction to sustain a brisk walk, much less run. Hopefully it will be clear by tomorrow morning - but there's something to the crunching noise that just adds to the experience. I expect I'd feel differently if it was knee or even ankle deep. As it is, there's only a two-inch-powder which even the most fainthearted could endure in tennis shoes. To wit: yours truly. Booyah.
change.
I am hopeful for a change in job situations. More specifically, I'm looking into a paid internship at one of the local hospitals. This is all very up in the air right now - and I hesitate to say very much about it for the fear of implying a lot of things. To make a long matter short, I am happy enough at the store, but it has nothing to do with my area of study and I am eager for more experience in nursing. I feel like if I were involved in the giving of nursing care at other points of the week, my studies would benefit. At the very least, I would like to get more confidence - especially on the practical level. Theory is all very well and good - I know I can think, but nursing requires a lot more than just thought: you have to be confident enough with your thought and experience to do something. And that is where I can see, quite honestly, that I need to grow the most. So I'm trying to push forward with this and not hang back out of fear or the desire to simply stay where I'm most comfortable.
confidentially...
I thought, also, that I should take a moment in this random post to explain an aspect of school that makes blogging... awkward at times, and my posting rate so infrequent. I like to tell stories. I like to take little tales from my life, perhaps dress them up with a tweak here or there to make myself feel more clever or the story more interesting or whatever, and then spew them out for anyone unfortunate enough within ear/eye-shot to catch. And here comes a great, big, fat conundrum. Nursing school - and the most interesting part especially: clinicals - offer a lot of opportunity for interesting, hilarious, and/or touching stories. Which is great - except that I can't tell any of them. (Blog, meet HIPAA. HIPAA, this is my blog.) At the risk of sounding horridly melodramatic, it all boils down to this: any story I stick on here could be a liability, whether it mentions names or diagnoses or not. Posting anything about hospital time very well might get me in trouble, and I'd rather not test that possibility. So if I seem to be dwelling in insignificancies, or if I go long periods of time without saying anything... I'm sorry. I just have to learn to keep my mouth shut, especially with a blog. >.>
conundrum.
I am learning the hard way how much I rely on God for... everything. The old standby first-question of the Westminster Catechism: what is the chief end of man? and its well-rehearsed answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever - well, I am learning that either I must take that to practice, or not. There is no way to blur over this little point of perspective, or worldview, or commandment, or whatever you want to call it. It does not often come down to Moments of Decision in my life, but I had one last night. I wrote a page of a journal entry - something to the effect of: why live? my life is useless - and then got up, used the bathroom (helpful places, those), and realized something. That page of emotional thrashing could stand as an accurate description of my state of soul, or I could throw it off like an old tattered garment.
When I was younger, I wrote many such pages of thrashing, and I think I liked them because they lent emotional strength to my style, and I could reread them and be moved by them (this is, perhaps, one of the most disgusting attributes of my past self that I see in retrospect, and every time it resurfaces I feel like tearing my hair). But last night, if only for an instant, I saw the two paths clearly: I could live and think and orient my soul towards the glory of God, or I could live my life mourning the fact that I was not exalted enough. I had a choice - but I didn't. The latter option was so filled with all that was small and squalid, so ridden with all the limp flaccidity of old, dead flesh, that I could no more follow it than I could decide that the sky today was green. I'm not that person. A choice, maybe- or perhaps more a moment of clarity, a glimpse of things as they are, and then a realization: I must be who I am - to live, I must live as a new creation completely caught up in the glorification of God. I've died to self-glorification. I've died to the idea that I will only feel fulfilled by my own exaltation. If I find my life not worth living, it is because I have begun to seek my own glory, I have begun to live the life of a dead man when I am very much alive, and my whole being cries out in pain over the contradiction of this unsustainable impossibility. The sky was blue; I am dead to sin and self-worship.
When I was younger, I wrote many such pages of thrashing, and I think I liked them because they lent emotional strength to my style, and I could reread them and be moved by them (this is, perhaps, one of the most disgusting attributes of my past self that I see in retrospect, and every time it resurfaces I feel like tearing my hair). But last night, if only for an instant, I saw the two paths clearly: I could live and think and orient my soul towards the glory of God, or I could live my life mourning the fact that I was not exalted enough. I had a choice - but I didn't. The latter option was so filled with all that was small and squalid, so ridden with all the limp flaccidity of old, dead flesh, that I could no more follow it than I could decide that the sky today was green. I'm not that person. A choice, maybe- or perhaps more a moment of clarity, a glimpse of things as they are, and then a realization: I must be who I am - to live, I must live as a new creation completely caught up in the glorification of God. I've died to self-glorification. I've died to the idea that I will only feel fulfilled by my own exaltation. If I find my life not worth living, it is because I have begun to seek my own glory, I have begun to live the life of a dead man when I am very much alive, and my whole being cries out in pain over the contradiction of this unsustainable impossibility. The sky was blue; I am dead to sin and self-worship.
I caught myself
looking in the mirror,
wishing I was someone else,
'cause I was born
with this bleeding heart
and veins of loneliness.
And I've known it,
I've held it,
right here in my arms,
but love can't seem to break me down.
And I've pleaded,
and begged,
and bloodied my eyes
just to feel it,
to believe it'll stick around.
Oh - swing wide the glimmering gates.
-Andrew Osenga-
looking in the mirror,
wishing I was someone else,
'cause I was born
with this bleeding heart
and veins of loneliness.
And I've known it,
I've held it,
right here in my arms,
but love can't seem to break me down.
And I've pleaded,
and begged,
and bloodied my eyes
just to feel it,
to believe it'll stick around.
Oh - swing wide the glimmering gates.
-Andrew Osenga-
Well, for fear of making this letter here on my desk thoroughly obsolete, I won't say much.
Except that when I say that, I always do.
I've been in a bit of a whirl lately, just doing my routine, reading Morning by Morning at the appropriate time, and some of the minor prophets in the evening. Just going about my own thing, wanting to pay attention to the rather serious calling to which I have been called, but frequently (more frequently than normal) completely forgetting about it. And then, when I realize my mistake, I shake myself in contempt...knowing all the while that I'll only lapse back into forgetfulness again. It's a vicious cycle, but I know it can be broken. Your post, and my own basic faith, assures me that the God who has broken the powers of sin and death and the devil is working in me to break me into tiny pieces and shape me after his own perfect image. There is, as Lewis pointed out in The Weight of Glory, a certain glory of the creature in this complete submission to the will of the Creator. We possess an eternal glory which is being worked out in us in moments like when you stepped out of the washroom. But though one's self is glorified, it is a selfless glory - that's the beauty of the paradox. What freedom! to be peaceful and confident in one's right submission to God, to be tranquil and stalwart in the faith, to be rid of all the crowding voices of petty pride, whether exulting or self-abasing.
It is so hard, and yet it is so real.