Seas Part

This week I am humbled because in the aftermath of my last post, God did a mighty thing that elicited a visceral reaction. The other night, I went to bed early at like 9 pm because I had an opening shift the next day. Around midnight, my phone rang and I woke up - as I glanced at my phone, my initial reaction was one of dread because I realized it was my sister calling. To clarify, I guess I'm a bit conditioned to respond this way because growing up, I grew to associate late night calls from my sister with really bad news. I picked up right away, and sure enough, my sister was crying. She proceeded to tell me that she got into the graduate program back in Salt Lake. In my sleepiness, I tried to process the information and then it sank in. God made the impossible possible. She got in.

Let me backtrack. My sister's history is a convoluted one, and while it is not my story to tell, I'll share the skeletal bits that will clarify this testimony. She dropped out of college during the first semester more than 10 years ago and went back to finish her undergrad a few years ago. Throughout most of this time, she worked as a waitress (and continues to do so) and as you can imagine, going back to college took an intentionality that can be comparable to a huge leap of faith across a chasm of doubt. She voiced similar sentiments with applying to grad school last year and when I was home for Christmas, I got to talk to her and encourage her with some words that I felt like the Lord was asking me to speak over her. Last month, my sis got an in-person interview and left the interview feeling pretty dejected because it was brought up that she had a DUI from almost ten years ago. Basically, even though her application was a strong one, chances that she would get in were slim due to the fact that she might not be able to finish the practicum portion of the program due to the DUI. She met with a lawyer and looked into expediting the expungement process (it takes around 10 years for a DUI to be taken off of a record) and realized that she might have to put school on hold.

Throughout this process, I felt like God was going to answer my family's prayers in a big way and show my sister how he was pursuing her. Sure enough, I could hear the amazement in her voice as she repeatedly told me that she got in and that God had opened up a door. She had gotten an email from the school with an informal acceptance and a statement that the school would make an exception.

After we hung up, I laid in my bed trying to process everything. And then the tears came, and I found myself weeping. For most of my life, I have had a huge burden for my sister and there have been many times when I have prayed and ugly-cried for my sister by myself (to the point where past roommates have knocked on my door and asked if I was okay). I wept and wept and I guess I was pretty noisy because Liz knocked on my door and came in and I looked up at her and said, "these are joyful tears".

He makes the impossible possible; he parts red seas.

Disorientation

In every Christian's life, there are cyclical seasons: orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. I guess you can think of the first as a season where you first encounter Christ and everything around you seems to pulsate with joy and life. You experience what freedom from sin looks like. You marvel at how the love of Christ can hit your heart so hard and fill the deep ache inside you that you realized has been inside you all of this time. You see yourself through the lens and eyes of Christ, as someone who is innately worthy and deeply beloved.

Ah, if only we could stay in this season of orientation. But alas, we live in a broken and fallen world and we ourselves are broken and fallen creatures. Thus, seasons of disorientation are - on this side of heaven - to be expected. Fogginess. Confusion and doubt. The burden of sin and the experience of receiving and inflicting pain. Prayers that are unanswered. All this and more can characterize seasons of disorientation and give rise to questions like "Where are you, God?" and "What in the world are you doing?" To be frank, I am in a season of disorientation. I feel the heaviness of unanswered prayers that reaches far back into the past and the lethargy of not knowing what the future holds. I feel the present tension and discomfort of not being completely satisfied. I can distract myself, but in the end, must acknowledge face-on that I still feel empty.

Just as seasons of orientation cannot last forever, seasons of disorientation have the power to be spaces where we experience our need for God in the valley. It is in this space that I am fully dependent on him to meet me and reorient me back to him. I can trust that he will do so, because he has done it for me in the past. Right. He was with me when my dad walked out when I was a year old and when my sister was victim to trauma; he was with me when as a small kid I came home from school to a dark and empty house; he was with me when I experienced disappointment after disappointment in my relationship with my dad during my teenage years/early twenties; he was with me when I experienced depression at Wheaton College; he was with me when I experienced severe depressive disorder and suicidal ideation in 2016. He was with me.

And I know you still are. And I know that I would rather utter prayers that have the word 'with' instead of 'for'. Pastor Peter preached on this entire post yesterday at church and I appreciated the reminder that prayers that have the word 'for' usually result in disappointment in God. God, I'm waiting for this and that and why aren't you moving and why aren't you answering my prayers?  I'm reminded that incorporating the word 'with' can be a powerful shift that allows God to make himself known even in the gloomiest of seasons. Because let's be real, the presence of God in even the darkest of seasons can be a powerful experience that changes you and cultivates faith and intimacy. So, God, walk with me in this season; be with me; show me who you are.

t h a n k f u l L I S T

-Even though I didn't get offered the job at Rush Oak Park Hospital, it was a good learning opportunity

-Thankful for my life group and the solid people in this community

-I got offered a job (!!!); one of the store managers from Sugar Beet Food Co-op called me last Friday and said she kept my application on file from last summer and asked if I had any availability to work part-time. Seeing that I'm working less than part-time at Philz Coffee, I gladly accepted. So! I start my first training shift this Sunday evening! haha also, here is a snippet of how my phone conversation went with the manager: "Gina, I'm so... glad that you called! I just feel so affirmed that an employer wants to hire me." Note that this phone conversation was riding the coattails of my not so great in-person interview at ROPH the previous day.

-My mom called me today and told me, "Grace, you have nothing to worry about. Just thank God for everything." And you know what? She's totally right. I need to stop wallowing in the unknowns and trust that I know a God who knows all. Isn't that something that should elicit worship? As I work these two jobs, I'll continue to apply for different nursing jobs and opportunities and trust that it'll work out eventually. But in the meantime, I don't want to miss out on worshiping the Lord and trusting him in the process.

when I'm sad, I write

so here goes.

The interview at Rush Oak Park Hospital last week left me confused. doubtful. flustered. down.
All my insecurities of why I put nursing on the back-burner these past few months were only amplified as I set foot in the hospital and began to intensify as my interviewer (the nursing supervisor) grilled me on a variety of nursing and patient-related questions. To be fair, the questions she asked me were all relevant and I probably should have been better prepared going into this first interview. For the most part, I was able to answer most of her questions; still, I found the heat creeping up my neck and into my face as I blanked on a few of the more important ones. Maybe I was super tired from working the opening shifts the previous day and also earlier that morning, but the overall interview left me feeling a bit dejected and deflated. I am scared to be a nurse aka I am scared of the unknown and the challenges that being a new nurse will bring. I know that there is a bigger calling on my life to go abroad but I also know that I need to experience being a nurse in a hospital stateside before I leave. Why am I being so resistant to the process? A better question I need to pose is: is the so-called "process" something I am trying to control or am I letting God take the reign? Maybe I'm not meant to work in a hospital as an in-patient nurse right now in this season. Maybe I am. I dunno. Thus, the confusion and fogginess.

I had a dream the other night where I was at the airport and was frantically trying to board my flight to get to my destination (for some reason the destination in my dream was South Korea - I think it probably refers to my desire to go abroad). In my dream, I was trying to navigate the airport to check-in my bags and get through security but I kept getting lost in what appeared to be a maze. I kept getting this sense that I had missed my flight. Interesting, right? Seems pretty reflective of my internal state.

God, wow, I really need you. I need you today. Would you meet me in my emotions, my doubt, my fear and insecurities? My resistance to you is rooted in a lack of trust in your great sovereignty and your great goodness and desire to see me flourish, regardless of what season I'm in. Help me to once again open my palms and surrender to you and your plan for my life. Help me to surrender the doubt and uncertainty. The unknown.