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When I taught nursing, I was very comfortable in the classroom. I knew what topics we were going to cover. I could answer most every question. It was planned, regular, just the kind of life I like.
But then we got to clinicals. I was as nervous as the students. Nothing was predictable.
I love to write about life. I comment from the security of my favorite rocking chair in our cozy home. I am blessed.
But then God says it’s time to come out of the classroom. He wants me to actually live what I am writing about. And I get very nervous.
Life outside is not predictable. I don’t have answers to all the questions. I get panic attacks when things get really unpredictable for me personally, as they have been recently with a new eye problem.
But God is constantly reminding me of His Presence and that He is not going with me. I am going with Him!
In good times, I enthusiastically sing, “All to Jesus I surrender.” I say I will go where He tells me to go and I will do what He tells me to do.
And then He says, “OK, it’s time to leave the classroom and go to the mission field.”
That sounds promising until He lays out the itinerary. UK emergency room on Christmas Eve. Shriners Eye Care Center on Christmas and the day afterward with possible future stop in Cincinnati because no cornea surgeon is working in Lexington until after the New Year.
As stressful as the past couple of days have been, they were also times of abundant blessings. We saw the tired, the lonely, the grieved, the frightened, the hopeful and more.
We saw people who gave up times with their own families to work on holidays and give themselves to others. We saw kindness, compassion and love flow through places of crisis. We saw Jesus up close and personal in unlikely places.
I saw and felt the love of family gathered not around a Christmas tree, but around me in Love.
I now sit at home and wait, still praying for the healing of the hole in my cornea. Tomorrow I am supposed to go with God back to the doctor to check the progress.
That is, of course, unless God changes the Plan. He knows The Plans, but He has not given me all the details yet!
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares The Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
