Despite all the crap, I still love nursing school!!

Last semester I had some doubts about whether or not I could make it through nursing school. I think I was having those doubts because I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a nurse. I had just gotten back from an amazing week and a half in Niger, and sitting and studying for hours upon hours just did not work well with me at all! I loved those eleven days that I spent there. I had never felt so close to God before, even though I don't think that I had ever been in a darker environment. I felt that nursing wasn't a good enough thing to study and devote part of my life too, when I had just seen how much lostness there is in other parts of the world.

But at the beginning of this summer, we did a series on the body of Christ and church with the youth group. As part of that, one Wednesday night we studied spiritual gifts, and I put together a small group discussion on different spiritual gifts (that we still haven't used -- long story...). I've heard sermons on spiritual gifts before, and even taken one of those amazing spiritual gift quizzes (haha, I told the youth not to take one), but I don't know if I ever really realized what my spiritual gift was.

1 Corinthians 12:27 says, "those able to help others" and Romans 12:8 says "if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously" but I love the wording in The Message in Romans 12:8 "give aid to people in distress." It really only occured to me this summer that this is my spiritual gift. It makes sense... First, I'm always drawn to those "in distress". Whether it's a friend that's having problems or sick children in Niger. The reason that I first wanted to be a nurse was because I wanted to work with children with cancer. I seem to have an affinity for what some people might call depressing, but it really isn't to me.

And so, I realized this summer that nurses... are helpers. Nurses help people cope with disease or death, we help people with their daily activities when they're too weak or sick to do it themselves, we help people's families, we help people with their medications or treatments, we help people get back to their normal lives. And God has blessed me with the opportunity to study to become a nurse, a secular job (really though, I don't think it is) where I get to use my spiritual gift every single day!!... in my job!!

So, when I have been studying Pharmocology for 5 hours, or when I'm reading boring Research chapters, or getting stressfully quizzed by a clinical instructor, it's all worth it because of what I get to do at clinicals. This semester I've gotten to see a baby be born, help a teenage mother during her first day of parenthood, and... play with babies!! So, when I am so stressed... like now... and just wish that I could go to the beach for a week or just watch TV, it helps to know that this career is something that God has given me so I can help others, not just something that I have picked.