Let's just call today a Sabbath

Sometimes, you just have to stop life in its tracks and take a breather. I mean, I didn't really get very far in this soul-searching mission of mine, but I'm already pooped. Not really. I'm just trying to justify not getting much done today. 

I woke up and did my QT today in bed. QT in bed is ALWAYS a bad idea... because before I knew it, I was waking up with my journal on my face. I so wish I was a morning person. Maybe it just means I need to do my QTs in a way that'll wake me up? Read scripture while doing some ab crunches? Speaking of ab crunches... due to an "abs and rock bottoms" class I took the night before, my entire lower half of my body has become useless. EVERYTHING ACHES. 

Actually, I think I will try and pull out my guitar first thing in the morning and lead myself into a time of musical worship. That way I'll have to get off my butt and out of bed. 

Anyway, here is why today became my Sabbath day:

I met up with a most lovely and dear sister of mine... my bosom friend. My 2nd "before-I-knew-it" moment of the day occurred when 3 hours passed at a restaurant and we didn't even realize how long we had been sitting there. One-on-ones are such healing moments for me, though. As we unload our frustrations and celebrate our joys together, I always find myself so inspired and encouraged, with a huge weight off of my shoulders when I leave them. Good friends... particularly good sisters, are so important! 

After that much-longer-than-expected rendezvous, I swear... I was headed toward a Second Cup to get some work done. But then I thought of how much money I had used all day and decided I would work from home. As soon as I got home, I got a text from my mom telling my sister and I to head over to the local jjim-jil-bang. You can't say no to a trip to the jjim-jil-bang. It is just not allowed. 

But lemme tell you, it was a very MUCH needed trip to the jjim-jil-bang, because not only can my thigh muscles actually handle walking down the stairs now, I just feel so ZEN. So much so that I didn't realize how slow I was driving until my mom pointed it out. 

Let's just say... I was productive in a very passive way.

Also, update on yesterday and that book I was reading on Nursing within a Christian Context. I surprisingly came to a couple of really cool and helpful conclusions while reading that book. Here are a few:

- The beginning roots of nursing in history began as a way to rescue the poor and the widow and the orphan... the homeless, helpless, marginalized peoples.
- The ultimate purpose for physical healing, in the bible, was to restore people to a vital relationship with God and the community.
- Nursing cannot work toward the goal of health without including the clear proclamation of the gospel.
- Nursing is one really tangible way to work toward bringing the world to SHALOM (God's original intent for mankind).

Pretty profound for such a cheesy-lookin book, if I do say so myself.

Explorations

I got up this morning and, after doing some QT, I rolled around in my bed for a bit pondering how I'll spend my day... and started looking through my bookshelf for some inspiration.

Urbana... should better be titled as the expensive event during which you spend more money purchasing a buttload of books that exist for the sole purpose od gathering dust on your shelf. Not really. .. because both urbanas I attended were actually two of the most enriching weeks of my life. But the book haul part... is 100%... and unfortunately, very true.

Anyway, I came across a book with cheesy font across the front and a cheesy image to go with it entitled: "Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing".

As I started flipping through the book, I realized... hey. My 4 year nursing degree is the most useful and functional resource I have currently. Why not start there? God didnt lead me through those 4 years for no reason, right?

That's my first tiny little baby step  - exploring what it means to use this profession. Maybe something will stick out! So far.. it doesn't look promising, but one can only hope for the best :)

At Such A Time As This

I've been setting my sights on this very moment in my life for so many years. A natural dreamer, I couldn't help but constantly wonder what was to come for me when I finally accomplished all of my educational obligations and was set free to make my mark in the world. Now, that day has finally come and... quite frankly, I've never felt more lost. 

It's not that I haven't spent countless hours coming up with a 10-year plan, nor is it that there are absolutely no opportunities for me to take a stab at. I have a practical nursing degree for which jobs are at my disposal, and a wide variety of experiences to vouch for my competence. I'm probably in the best position to kick-start my long-term career, relative to most of my recently graduated colleagues... so why the long face, Rach? 

Let's just say that this feels a lot more like an existential crisis, in pursuit of greater purpose and calling and vision and other such lofty-sounding idealistic desires. 

I find myself continuously asking... "What does all of this amount to?" 
There has got to be so much for to life than what I have seen in the people around me... settling into stable careers, then marriages, families, dogs, houses, cars, retirement, death. If I have become remotely closer to understanding the God of this universe, I know that He is not a God that settles for lack-lustre. If in creating the universe, He was okay with bland and vapid, what an utter shame it would've been compared to the beauty we see around us today. 

I know what my greater end goal is... to glorify Him who is above all things with my life. But that's a notion that is thrown around so much in the church. What I really want to know is HOW?! 

I feel a little like Esther. 

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" - Esther 4: 14

I have come to see that this world is so broken. It and the humans that inhabit it. Just one scan through the news and it's not hard to come to this realization. And though I'm not a royal queen, relative to the majority of the world, I have so much to offer and pour out into this world. I have graciously been given skills, and talents, and gifts and passions and resources that weren't meant to be stored away. Now is a better time than any to explore them and try my hand at using them for His Kingdom. I don't want to sit here and waste away while there is so much reconciliation and restoration to be had. At such a time as this... this is when I need to be courageous and bold.

But let's be real... in the face of it, it's all so daunting and overwhelming. I don't even really know where to start. Every direction I look seems so foggy. 

But over the past week, what I have come to see is that what is necessary as my priority is to grow deeper in my relationship with God first and foremost... and He will light the lamp unto my feet and give me direction and purpose. Without that, none of this is worth it. 

So... I've decided to take it one step at a time... walking in step with the Spirit as He moves and transforms my heart. My plan is to use this blog to share these steps here as I embark on this tireless, and potentially endless pursuit of the via, veritas, and vita. 

How to be Human

Truth-tellers may lie
Victors may lose
Lovers may hate
Laughers may cry
The strong may feel weak
The honoured may lose their dignity
Those who hope may choose to give up.

They may... because that is what makes them human. Humans cannot be painted with one stroke. We are sometimes, and sometimes we are not. We're never fully at one end, nor are we ever fully in the very middle. We teeter and we slide back and forth in an endlessly unpredictable uncertain way. How fickle, we humans? How unfaithful.

But, then again, maybe that's what it means to be human. To acknowledge the real possibility that imperfection may actually be the most perfect condition for humanity. To appreciate the experience of imperfection as a necessity prerequisite to even begin to fathom what is perfect. And to confess the reality that you are just as far removed from perfect as the bloke sitting next to you.

We need to fall into deep, dank holes in order to understand how worthwhile it is on the surface. And when you finally muster up the courage to own up to the world that you're stuck, the bloke that was in his own deep, dank hole next to yours the whole time will build a tunnel to yours. Then you'll call out together for help and soon realize that pretty much everyone is stuck in their own deep, dank hole. A whole network of tunnels will begin to form and... now you're all sitting in a deep, dank hole together.

Together is important. Because together means we're not alone. And we're not alone means: "oh, you too?", which means we weren't as crazy as we thought we were. It is only there that we'll realize that we are simply, human. That for us, impossibilities exist and "can't" is real, and that is quite okay.

But within that imperfect, deep dank hole... we will not settle.
Because when we embrace our lies,
and loss,
and hatred,
and tears,
and weakness,
and shame,
and destitution...
We will understand the merit in truth,
and victory,
and love,
and laughter,
and strength,
and honour,
and hope.

We'll begin to dream of higher, better and brighter. And understanding our fallibility and our limitations, we'll know we won't be able to do it on our own. This, I believe, is how to be human... to take our capable and dependable masks off and wear who we truly are on our sleeves... vulnerable, and scared, with tails between our legs. Until we get there, we'll walk through our lives knowingly attributing ourselves to what we are actually not. We'll walk through our lives knowingly taking credit for something we are incapable of. That is a life without purpose and without truth. It is a life lived without giving room to the being who is capable, who is dependable, and who is perfect.