God has been teaching me so much in the last few weeks. He has been showing me how important it is to trust fully in Him, to experience joy in each moment that He gives me and to make all the little moments with my family count. It is not always easy to learn these lessons, but knowing that God is right there with me through it all makes it ok.
As most of you know, a few weeks ago I got the call telling me that I was on modified duty until we could figure out a way to protect me from the Neoblue bili lights at work. I didn't know at that point if I would ever be able to work in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit again. That was my home away from home. My friends were there. I loved my job and enjoyed all aspects of what I did. And I was good at it. My heart stopped and I began to grieve. . . the loss of my unit, the loss of my friends and the loss of my place in this world. I now had no safe niche to go to at work and just felt lost and oh, so alone. I cried out to God to show me His will. I knew what I wanted. . . desperately wanted. I wanted to go back to my job and have that security back. I didn't want to go any where else. And I prayed that God would open the door for me to go back to the NICU. But I also knew that God has the power to place me somewhere else. He would do what ever was going to bring Him glory and honor-not just what I selfishly wanted. I wrestled with Him, for days on end. I prayed while driving, while sitting alone at work for hours, while in bed. Every moment of the day turned into a time to seek God and allow Him to work in my heart. And slowly He did. I kept praying that He would help me to find joy while on modified duty-feeling like an outcast. That He would help me find joy if I had to work in another unit. And that He would give me joy in each area of my life whether it was what I wanted or not. Slowly, ever so slowly, God gave me peace that passes understanding and a joy that only comes from Him. I was able to find a real peace knowing that God may be moving me to another place in the hospital and knowing that I may have to work on paperwork for a few months until it all got sorted out. I love having a relationship like that with God. He made me and He loves me. The God of the universe cares about my heart and will do what ever it takes to make me more like Him.
Then God gave me hope that a solution might be available. My optomotrist gave me a pair of glasses to try around the bili lights. Then my Uncle Scott found a brand that said it would block out 99.9% of the light wave that the bili lights put out. After working at Sutter teaching mock code stuff at skills day, I had a day of modified duty. I took the glasses to the unit and worked up there for a couple hours. The neoblue light was there and with the glasses on, I was fine. No headaches at all!!! I was super excited and so thankful that we had found a solution in only a week and a half. The next day I was allowed to go backt to work and ended up picking up a 12 hour shift that night. The following night I picked up another shift. I had a baby on a ventilator that had two neoblue lights on him. Because of where he was we couldn't use the drapes that protect our eyes from some of the light waves. I still didn't get sick. Not even a hint of a headache. God is so good to me.
Today at church I could see so clearly all that God has been teaching me. It felt like God was showing me all those things that I had been learning the past few weeks. Pastor Bauer was talking about how God always has a plan. He is the God of the universe. He created all things and is in control of all things. He doesn't need us giving Him imput or advice. He has a set plan of what He wants to do. When the crowds came to Jesus on the mountain, they had a physical need at the end of the day. All 5,000 men, plus women and children were hungry and needed food. Any town was too far away to go to and they didn't have enough money to buy bread for all to eat. God was testing the disciples to see what they would do. Instead of remembering the many, many miracles God had done in the old testament and all the miracles that Jesus had done and trusting that Jesus could do something great, they gave up on the situation. They didn't fully trust that Jesus had a plan or that He was big enough to do a miracle and provide for the peoples needs. Jesus was testing them and they failed the test. He did provide for them. One child gave Jesus all of his lunch-5 small loaves of bread and 2 small fish. The disciples still didn't think that Jesus could do anything, but He proved them wrong. He turned that little lunch into enough food to feed 20,000 people with 12 baskets left over. He can do so much more than we can imagine. Why don't we trust Him more? Why do we give up when we face something hard and not cry out to God to provide and do something amazing. He cares for me and He has a plan. It probably isn't something that I would have come up with. His plan is most likely bigger and better than I could have ever dreamed. I want to encourage you: Trust Jesus with all your heart. He has a plan for your life. He can see the whole picture and will do what is best-not just what you think is best. All that He does, He does to bring Himself glory. We need to be focuses on Him and not on ourselves. If we spend our day listening to ourselves whine and worry, then we become unhappy and full of pride and selfishness. When we focus on thanking God for all He does and all He has done for us, our focus moves from ourselves to God. We will be filled with peace and joy and our minds will be transformed. I am going to continue to strive to keep my focus on Christ and be filled with thankfulness in the good times and during the trials as well. God is good, all the time!
I thank God for letting the glasses work. I thank Him for protecting me from the migraines at work and allowing others to be protected too. I praise Him for letting me be able to work in the NICU again and for only missing 2 weeks of work there. I thank God for my family. They bring me such joy and blessings. I thank Him for the hard times when I cry out to Him and am drawn closer to Him. I thank Him for working on my heart in so many ways and changing me daily into more of the person that He wants me to be. I thank God for all the little things and am so glad that He cares about the little things that bring us joy. Thank-you God for all you are and all you do. There is no one like you!!
