Saturday, January 03, 2009

Human Documents, Living Death...


If you don't know where I am or what I am doing than this is a good blog for you to read. I started working at Decatur Memorial Hospital and Hospice on January 4th and my life has never been the same. I am the chaplain Intern.


Chaplains are constantly working in crisis ministry. My mentor, who is the lead Chaplain at the hospital and in hospice said, "You will experience and see more here in six months that working in the church for six years." This is a man who worked in the church as the pastor for twenty years and now has worked as a chaplain for twenty-two. He has shown me when to listen, when to talk, how to talk, and how to shine the love of Christ to people who are in all kinds of life situations.


The more I visit with people, the more I hear their stories. The more I try to encourage the more I see the need for Christ, the more I see the need for scripture, and the more I see the need for the active healthy church.


Psalm 14:1

"The fool says in his heart "There is no God."


This verse has been made apparent as I have worked with human documents. My job is to go visit men and women in the hospital and in hospice and offer spiritual support. I have visited all kinds of people in all kinds of situations. Some who have had all the cards stacked against them. Some who have family abuse, death, addiction. Some who have been in church all of their lives but are still not assured of their salvation. Some that don't want anything to do with God and are angered by the name Christian.


The men and women in the hospital are different than the men and women I visit in hospice. Hospital patients usually have a chance of leaving their hospital room and going home to live.


Hospice patients are in their dying days.


Visiting men and women who are dying has put a spin on my perception of life.


I want to live.


I don't want to be on my dying bed, at any age, and feel like I haven't done enough. The only way I can combat this thought is to find my security in Christ. The hope bringer.


When I visit men and women who are dying, all the shit that we think is important in our youth holds no importance. The stances we take in our opinions, in our important arguments, in our self righteous lifestyles doesn't hold water when we are in our dying days. "Generations come and generations go." Ecc. 1:2


We will not be remembered. Our relationships will be forgotten. Our names will be forgotten.


Unless we are under, around, and within Christ.


If we choose to be found within his life, death and resurrection then we can find enjoyment within our daily lives, because we will know that even though we live a momentary life, on our death beds we can say that we lived.


I visited a patient in hospice who wasn't done yet. She had more to do. She had a job, a family even a dog who needed her care. Who cried when my mentor and I walked in because she thought we were there to give her last rights. We assured her that we were there to visit and to offer support.


She died a week later.


We can either choose to be in a state of living death, where we find discontentment in every relationship, in every life situation, in every moment. Or we can find ourselves within Christ and we can be content with what we have and with who we are. We can find our security in the true life rather or we can deceive ourselves by trying to find life within our death.

Thursday, January 01, 2009

4 Years

I started this blog in 2005 to record the different things that I would experience in college. As I look back on the different postings I have seen a huge change from where I was as an eighteen year old girl to who I am as a twenty one year old women.

I have seen, heard, tasted, and experienced things I never thought I would in four years. I have been across oceans, across borders, across cultural divides. I have tried to end my blog a dozen or so times in my effort to walk away from my self-reflective life, but I always learned something new that impacted my walk with Christ and so I needed to communicate it to someone.

In the last four years I have thought about giving up my faith, feeling that it was foolish and silly and based on myth, but the more I learn the less I feel like I know, and the less I know shows me that I am a small part of creation. This revelation has shown me that sometimes there is no good choice to choose, sometimes our human limitations keep us from God, sometimes sin allows for grace.

I have changed mentally along this way and last night was my last learning lesson of 2008. Waylon took me out to dinner and to a movie and we were driving back to Lincoln. We were talking about the many things that happened in 2008 and the many things that were going to continue to happen as we grow together.

It then hit me; our life is going to soon be over. Sure we have, hopefully another sixty, maybe seventy years left, but that's it. Then the trip is over. Waylon made a very insightful statement, "I think people realize that life is going to fly so they work as hard as they can, but I just want to snuggle and talk as many walks as I can." My fiance has faced death in the face on more than one occasion and has realized that life can be as simple as we make it.

So, this year I am going to make each moment count. I am going to take as many walks as I can, I am going to have as many conversations as I can, I am going to represent Jesus as much as I can through my actions. While, this may look like a 'resolution' it is more of a faith statement. I am going to stop being afraid of humanity and I am going to start trusting God.

Because life is just a myriad of different moments that could be linear or could be cyclical, but they are just that, a myriad of different moments.

Moments that contain a certain number of breaths, a certain number of looks, and a certain number of words.

"The ice is thin enough for walking, the rope is worn enough to climb, throat is dry enough for talking, the world is crumbling but I know why.

Storm is wild enough for sailing, bridge is weak enough to cross, spine is frail enough for fighting, I'm home enough to know I'm lost.

It's just enough to be strong, in the broken places, in the broken places. It's just enough to be strong, should the world rely on faith tonight?"

The land unfair enough for planting, barren enough to conceive, poor enough to gain the treasure, enough a cynic to believe, enough a cynic to believe.

It's just enough to be strong, in the broken places, in the broken places. It's just enough to be strong, should the world rely on faith tonight?

Confuse enough o know direction, sun eclipsed enough to shine, still enough to find me trouble, see enough to know I'm blind, see enough to know I'm blind.

Just enough to be strong in the broken places, in the broken places, Just enough to be strong should the world rely on faith tonight?

Should the world rely on faith tonight?"

Through my moments in the next four years, I long to be within Christ.