This may sound crazy to some, but I wanted to share what I've been thinking about the last couple of days. I'm don't have it all figured out yet.
I know earlier I mentioned screening day (this last Wednesday). Well I want to tell you more about it, and how it affected me. Screening day is when people line up in hopes that we will be able to help them. There were 7,354 people that came to see us and 4,236 actually came through the gate and the line was open for 12 hours and 20 minutes. Of those 4,000 I don't know the final numbers on how many were accepted for surgery...but I do know, it was a very long day and by the end I was completely exhausted!!!
That night I really wasn't able to process what happened earlier that day, or even how I felt. Thursday afternoon, I took some time and sat by myself just thinking and trying to journal. The following excerpt from my journal explains how I was feeling.
"There are so many emotions, and like always I just want them to go away. Emotions hurt. Everyone here seems so full of love and compassion while I feel devoid of emotion. I don't know if I can open up and love on patients. It almost feels as if I'm trapped in my own emotionless prison."
There were a lot of thought going through my mind, I wasn't sure how to open up, how to love. If anything I put up walls and keep people out. It's only been the last couple of years that I started letting go of the walls, but now I know there are some left. I felt so empty, how can I love the way Christ loved, when I have nothing?
Right about that time, one of the nurses (who will actually be my charge nurse) walked out onto the deck and as she walked up to me she asked, 'quiet time?' I'm not sure what expression was on my face, because she then proceeded to ask me 'are you okay?' right away and the second she said that I lost it and started crying.
For those of you who know me well, I don't cry, and if I do it takes a lot to make me cry. I couldn't control my emotions and I sat there with tears rolling down my face saying, 'how do I love? I feel so empty?'
As she sat next to me, she looked at me and said, 'you're in the best place. When you know that you're empty God can come in and fill you with his love.' I thought about that for awhile, okay, several days and realized that I truly have built myself into an emotionless prison because when it hurts, it really hurts. What I came to realize was that, I've also robbed myself of feeling love, joy, and all the good emotions just to keep away the pain of potentially being hurt.
This is kind of scary, OK I'm terrified but I've asked God to help me take down the rest of the walls, and to fill me with his love. It's going to be a challenge, and so I would also ask that you pray those walls will come down and that God's love would replace the emptiness.
I know earlier I mentioned screening day (this last Wednesday). Well I want to tell you more about it, and how it affected me. Screening day is when people line up in hopes that we will be able to help them. There were 7,354 people that came to see us and 4,236 actually came through the gate and the line was open for 12 hours and 20 minutes. Of those 4,000 I don't know the final numbers on how many were accepted for surgery...but I do know, it was a very long day and by the end I was completely exhausted!!!
That night I really wasn't able to process what happened earlier that day, or even how I felt. Thursday afternoon, I took some time and sat by myself just thinking and trying to journal. The following excerpt from my journal explains how I was feeling.
"There are so many emotions, and like always I just want them to go away. Emotions hurt. Everyone here seems so full of love and compassion while I feel devoid of emotion. I don't know if I can open up and love on patients. It almost feels as if I'm trapped in my own emotionless prison."
There were a lot of thought going through my mind, I wasn't sure how to open up, how to love. If anything I put up walls and keep people out. It's only been the last couple of years that I started letting go of the walls, but now I know there are some left. I felt so empty, how can I love the way Christ loved, when I have nothing?
Right about that time, one of the nurses (who will actually be my charge nurse) walked out onto the deck and as she walked up to me she asked, 'quiet time?' I'm not sure what expression was on my face, because she then proceeded to ask me 'are you okay?' right away and the second she said that I lost it and started crying.
For those of you who know me well, I don't cry, and if I do it takes a lot to make me cry. I couldn't control my emotions and I sat there with tears rolling down my face saying, 'how do I love? I feel so empty?'
As she sat next to me, she looked at me and said, 'you're in the best place. When you know that you're empty God can come in and fill you with his love.' I thought about that for awhile, okay, several days and realized that I truly have built myself into an emotionless prison because when it hurts, it really hurts. What I came to realize was that, I've also robbed myself of feeling love, joy, and all the good emotions just to keep away the pain of potentially being hurt.
This is kind of scary, OK I'm terrified but I've asked God to help me take down the rest of the walls, and to fill me with his love. It's going to be a challenge, and so I would also ask that you pray those walls will come down and that God's love would replace the emptiness.
I think that whatever God is doing in your life now is pretty awesome! Seeing how you are letting go and letting God in.... is just an encouragement to me. Allow yourself to feel and embrace. Praying for you. Hugs.
ReplyDeleteJen~ I will be praying for you. I totally understand with walls to protect yourself...but it is o freeing to feel all those emotions-- the joy and beauty of life along with the hurt-- its a beauty God gave us as humans to have feeling so we can truly love and walk beside others in life. May you experience the love like you have never experienced it before. God is going to do amazing things in and thru you!!!!
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