Thursday, December 30, 2010

Recycled Post: In the waiting "room"

I posted this almost a year ago. I think it is a good reminder to myself, so I wanted to post it again.


I have spent multiple hours waiting around the hospital all week. If you don't know why, see my post here. In these hours I observed a great deal of people and situations.

In the initial waiting room of the ER, I watched an elderly gentlemen on a stretcher being transported to a psychiatric hospital. In the post assessment room, I saw a student with either a deformity or a large amount of swelling in his head/on his brain. He sat in a wheelchair with a hole in his shoe and a thin jacket on to keep him warm from the harsh wind that night. He was alone. That room also housed a husband and wife. The wife was in a wheelchair and crying.

Once we were given a room in the ER, the room across from us had a number of people pass through. The first, a woman who had surgery recently, was discharged but began throwing up once home. The second, a man in a wheelchair bent over in pain. His clothes were tan and I could hear him moaning in pain. His feet and hands? Handcuffed to the wheelchair. He was escorted by a police officer. The last patient I remember was someone I saw in the initial waiting room. He was also hunched over in pain. His face gaunt. His coat was about 3 sizes too big and his winter hat sat atop his head, not covering his ears. He was a homeless man.

For about an hour my chair was positioned in the hallway between two floors. To the right was the ER exam room floor and to my left was the pediatrics floor. Hospitalized babies filled the beds that night. As I sat there I could hear the cry of a baby that sounded like a one year old. It wasn't a cry of need or discontentment. It was a cry of desperation and pain. I found myself pleading with the Lord to give this baby, whose face I didn't know, some relief and rest. The babe continued to cry off and on for about 10 minutes, and then, from the silence, I assumed he was able to finally rest.

I walked down the hall to the bathroom several times and each time I walked by one of the empty beds for babies in the hospital. The kind that we have all seen Stellan in through MckMama's pictures. I pictured all those parents who just want to hold their children and bring them home to their own bed, yet all they can do is reach their arms through the bars of the bed to comfort their child, letting them know they are close.

My mind raced knowing large quantities of parents walk the hallway of the pediatric wing every day for days and weeks on end. Millions of tears have been shed in that wing and in that hospital.

Yet, there I sat with warm winter boots on my feet, without a hole. My family was together. My coat fit properly. I had a home to go to and have never known the feeling of watching my child sit in a hospital bed, feeling hopeless.

It doesn't mean the Lord loves me anymore than He loves each person I observed. He loves us all equally.

It doesn't mean I have good luck and they have bad luck- I don't believe in it.

I means that I am responsible to take what the Lord has given me to give back to Him. It means sitting in that hallway looking for ways to extend His love to those who are hurting. It means praying for one another, even when we don't know their face or even their name.

It means no matter how bad things become, the Lord walks with us.

It means the elderly, the homeless, the incarcerated, the emotionally exhausted, the 24 year old grad student, and the wife with no answers have hope. That not one moment of their life goes unnoticed. There is hope in the One who created them.

Even in the darkest hours of life, there is always hope.

Philippians 1:6
"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Tis so sweet

Tis so sweet
To trust in Jesus

Tonight I learned of the death of someone many loved dearly. I cannot say I know many who are loved so deeply by so many. Truly. She was a woman after God's heart. Her love for Him was so tangible and sweet.

Only a couple months ago was she diagnosed with leukemia. She missed her daughter's college graduation and her son's high school graduation due to the cancer and having a very difficult time with treatment. Her battle was hard and long. Yet, I can testify that when she came to church one Sunday in between treatment, she sat in the back with a blanket over her lap. When the pastor called attention to her presence in church that day, she simply raised her hands to heaven, eyes fixed on Jesus, giving all the glory to God.

I'll never forget singing in choir when she directed. The joy on her face when she sang praise is indescribable.

Just to take Him at His word. Just to rest upon His promise, and to know "thus saith the Lord"

There are hundreds shedding tears tonight over the loss of a friend, wife, mother, sister, aunt etc. My heart aches for her family. I can only pray and take confidence in knowing that Jesus will watch over them. He will hold them. Oh these coming days will be more difficult that my comprehension. But we have to trust...

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er; Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

No doubt in my mind...she is pain free tonight and singing with the angels. Glory to God, what a wonderful site she is seeing.

Please pray for her family. She leaves behind many who desperately need Him for comfort.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

A Time For Everything

Ecclesiastes 3: 1 & 4
"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance"

For my family, 2010 has been a time for the former of both these verses- a time to weep & and a time to mourn.

I can never remember a year that was filled with more sorrow, heartache, and pain.

My heart has never longed like it has this year.

The death of family and family friends.

Sickness that still haunts us.

Stories that don't seem to have the capacity of more negative outcomes to only disprove this theory.

We have mourned health and life this year.

We cried over thousands of unanswered questions.

Laughing and dancing has had no part in my vocabulary many a day this year. There have been many nights where I have driven around, talking aloud to the Lord asking and wondering "how long" until this season will pass. Pleading for a season of "the Lord's favor" to rest on my family, specifically the health of my family.

This Christmas season has especially been hard for me. I can hardly believe how many things remind me of my grandmother. There is a small part of me that wants to walk down to her house (she lived right down my street) , sit on her back porch, and just cry. I have so many memories in that house. Some of my most cherished childhood memories were formed there.

I sit here, with tears that still continue to stream....

Yet, my earthly desires, questions, and wants can still be coated in joy because He is the One Who gives me strength. Even when I fail to ask. Even when I question and doubt. Even when my sinful wants and desires overtake me, He remains faithful and reminds me of that little baby in the manger.

He is why we are here.

Yes, He is the reason for the season.

What joy fills my heart when I stop thinking of myself and focus on that baby, so soft and so sweet.

So full of promise and HOPE.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Because I am selfish

'tis the season to be selfish, right?

No?

Darn....well, CSN has picked me once again to run a giveaway or review. Since I did the giveaway last time, I thought I would use the review option this time. Does it count as being selfish if I use it for a gift?

Anyway, if you haven't heard of CSN stores, don't be ashamed! I hadn't until I started blogging, and now is the time to be educated! They have over 200 stores and you can find ALL kinds of things. They have everything from

Seriously, how sweet is this one?!

To dog beds
I just want the dog in this picture

To lots of cookware!

Seriously, go check out their 200+ sites! Finish up (or start!) your Christmas shopping with them! I love to shop online, especially when shipping is free on many items!!

Monday, December 6, 2010

From the sky

Over thanksgiving week, I spent time in 4 different planes. That means taking off and landing 4 times. For me, this translated to 4 times I had to deal with intense pain in my ears. When I say intense, I mean screeching, knife stabbing pain in my ears. I have tried every trick, but the ol ears still give me grief. Of course the higher altitude, the more pain upon descending. Good times.

But my ears are not really the point of this post.

It was not until the fourth flight I was on, from Newark, NJ to Manchester, NH, that I began to look at the ground from my window seat. As we took off, I could see hundreds of houses and cars. How tiny they looked from my little seat on the airplane. Their size did not amazing me, though. I began to think about all the people coming and going from those houses and how any people are in those cars. Each house likely represented, on average, four people living there.

Do the math; that is a lot of people. What took my breath away was thinking about how the Lord knows every person in that city. Every tear. Every laugh. He beats every one of their hearts. Are you getting the picture here? His power and omniscience in knowing that city alone is amazing. If you take it farther and think about our whole country and then our whole world? I am overwhelmed just thinking about it. Billions of people!

He loves each one.

He hears each one.

He longs to have a relationship with EACH one! I can barely maintain a close relationship 15 people, never mind billions.

That airplane ride showed me just a glimpse of this power. My finite mind does not even have the ability to comprehend what He is capable of being and doing.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." 1 Corinthians 1:25

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Work was canceled today

So I spent some time with my new pictures from my trip...





Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Partially



I certainly have not been a good blogger lately.

Partially because I have been too lazy.

Partially because I have lacked the desire.

Partially because I can hardly keep up with reading the blogs I follow

But mainly because I just haven't had the time!

I will be on a break from school in two weeks, so I am definitely hoping to write some posts then- including a CSN review.

I hope everyone is well and had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and/or friends. I, for one, and happy to be back home from a trip to the mid west!

VERY blurry, but here is what my suitcase weighed in at the night before my flight...

Yes, that's 49.6...that means I had 0.39 to spare!! Don't ever question my packing abilities!

Be back here soon!