Rejoicing and mourning

One thing I've learned over the past six months is how hard it is to find the balance between letting people grieve and mourn when appropriate but at the same time helping encourage them to find hope. I have had a hard time finding this balance not only with family and friends in my life, but most importantly with my PT patients.

At my inpatient rehab clinical at Duke in North Carolina all of my patients had just undergone a very life altering event, like a stroke or spinal cord injury, and they would have very emotional days because they were grieving over the loss of functioning like they used to in their life- whether it was their inability to walk or the reality that they would never be able to use the right side of their body again. There were many days that the patient would cry throughout the whole PT session because they were working so hard to get back to their prior level of activity but they just were unable to do the same things as before. One of my patients was a 60 year-old African American woman who had a stroke. She would try so hard to move her right arm and leg but she would get so frustrated and start saying over and over again in her Southern accent "I just want to be able to make Thanksgiving dinner for my family..." and then the tears would start flowing. Another patient was a young gentleman with a brain tumor who had both severe physical and mental deficits from the huge mass in his brain but all he wanted to do was be able to sit on the floor and play with his two kids but he didn't have the strength to do so. He had short term memory loss so everyday we would have to remind him why his limbs weren't working like they used to and why he couldn't get on the floor to play with his kids.
 Here in Colorado my patients are not in as serious of condition but several of my patients have really severe chronic pain. One patient has had 4 hip surgeries in the last four years and he is still unable to walk and he will probably end up getting a total hip replacement at the age of 26. He has two little ones at home that he is not able to walk or play with. He hasn't been able to work for years and he is frustrated that he is not able to provide for his family. He told me he hasn't been happy a single day since his initial injury. Another patient was in a serious car accident 3 years ago and he has had shooting nerve pain in his entire right arm and he has not been able to use it at all since the injury. He has been unable to find any pain relief and he can't find a job that he can do without the use of that arm. Everyday he shows up for PT his eyes are completely blood shot because he's in so much pain and he hasn't been able to sleep for over an hour at a time since his initial injury 3 years ago. This patient said there hasn't been a moment that he hasn't thought about his shooting pain since the car accident.
I could continue on and on with lots of stories like these because on my clinicals I've seen so many people going through some really tough stuff. I've been reminded often of how everyone around me is fighting some kind of struggle. Like Plato said "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." The question is how do you have sympathy for people when you really have no idea what they're going through? I can try to put myself in their shoes and understand what they're going through but I will never fully be able to appreciate their situation. The truth is that I really have no idea how many physical, psychological, and spiritual challenges they are facing.
I know that we are called to love these people and to help carry their burdens but what does that look like? 1 Peter 3:9 says to "Have sympathy, have brotherly love, and have a tender heart."
I know that I completely fail at all of the above. I don't do a good job of having compassion on these patients, or on people in general. Henri Nouwen states, "The definition of compassion is to suffer with." I fully realize that I don't do a good job of suffering with the people in my life. Instead I will just feel bad for them but I don't feel bad with them. I don't ever take the time to grieve with them or mourn with them. I always try to encourage them and cheer them up but it's important for me to give them that time to grieve and mourn and then to meet them where they're at in their spot of grieving and mourning.
The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 says "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." and Romans 12:15 says "Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn."
I wish I could say that I'm good at both those things but I'm really not. I still have a lot of growth that needs to happen in this area of my life.
The rejoicing part I'm good at. But that's because it's easy! Everyone enjoys celebrating with others over the victories in life. The other day one of my patients was taken off his rotator cuff "no resistance" restrictions by his surgeon so I was talking to him in my really high pitched excited voice as I went to go pick up the 1 lb. weight that he was going to do bicep curls with. Everyone in the clinic was making fun of me because I was so excited for him! But I was just trying to celebrate with him because he could start lifting weights (even though it was 1 lb) for the first time in 3 months! I have lots of other examples of rejoicing with those who are rejoicing. For example, I love birthdays and I love making a huge deal out of them because I love celebrating another year of life for that person and I love celebrating having that person in my life. Another example would be how several of my best friends have gotten engaged in the last few months and I have seriously gone ECSTATIC. But again this is easy to do. It's so fun and so exciting!
The challenge I have for myself is to not just do the easy part of rejoicing, celebrating, and encouraging. I want to do the challenging stuff, and I want to go to the tough places and I want to meet those people in their suffering, mourning and grieving.
Send up some prayers my way as I start this new challenge! And feel free to ask me about how it's going a little while from now ; )

Living a big story

My brother Vince is my hero. I was blessed to have the opportunity to hangout with him for 4 days two weekends ago when he flew out to CO to visit me. We had SO much fun hiking, running, talking, eating, and hanging out with cousins and friends. I seriously love hanging out with Vince and I think he's one of the coolest people I know. There are so many things I admire about him and I'm confident that I could write a whole blog talking about how awesome he is but instead I'll just focus on the thing I admire most about him...Vince lives a BIG STORY.

Now you might be wondering what I mean by living a big story? I personally think it can mean a lot of different things and look a lot of different ways for different people. The definition I'm using for living a big story is realizing that life is bigger than ourselves. I think living a big story can definitely mean doing awesome adventures, like traveling, and taking crazy risks, like climbing mountains, (and obviously I'm a fan of both of the above) but more importantly, I think living a big story is living a life that is God focused. On the contrary, living a small story, would be living for yourself. Vince has realized that the key to living a big story is living a life for God and not for himself.

If you know me well you know that I always have a mantra that I'm focusing on. I would say the last 5 months since finishing school in Iowa City my mantra has been "Living a big story". Since May I have constantly been praying that I would live anything but a small story and that my world would be expanded. Vince embodies this mantra very well in his daily life. Whether it's eating breakfast every Friday morning with the homeless population in Waco, leading a bible study with the freshman guys on his dorm floor, or cliff jumping with his friends, he is always living a big story. He's always focusing on the Lord, living life on the edge and investing in the community around him, even if it's uncomfortable.

Living a big story can be scary. It often involves stepping into things that you don't feel comfortable with and taking risks you're not sure about taking. I completely agree with the quote "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone". I have been pushed outside my comfort zone many times in the last 5 months of living in 3 new states, with 3 different housing situations of people I had never met, with 3 different work settings that I did not feel comfortable with at the beginning.

Two days ago I was driving to work looking at the majestic mountains in front of me and it hit me that all I was living life all wrong. I was living a small story and all I was focusing on was achieving the "American Dream". The thoughts I had recently been consumed with were 1) work and getting a job, 2) relationships and whether the new people I've been hanging out with here like me. Now don't get me wrong here...there is nothing wrong with the "American Dream" and of wanting a good job and wanting good community. God has given us all desires for work that is meaningful and relationships that are fulfilling. But if that is all our life is built on then that's living a small story.
If we focus our lives on God and not on ourselves, then the story is guaranteed to be big. The truth is "nothing lasts but that which is eternal" so if our story is solely based on stuff of this world then unfortunately that's a small story. If you build it on the Lord and it'll be bigger than you can ever imagine.

I don't know much about the upcoming chapter of my life story (hopefully I'll graduate, pass boards and make it safely to Kenya and have a PT job when I return!) but all I can pray for is that it will be a BIG chapter so that ultimately I can live a BIG story.

If there is one thing that is said about me when I die I want it to be that I lived a big story. Not a story that was small and egocentric, but a story that was God centered, and others focused. The thing that's so cool is that when you're God focused then you're going to be others focused because there's someone inside you that loves others way more than you ever can on your own.

P.S. I can think of so many examples of people in my life that are living a big story other than my bro Vince, he was just a really perfect example and our time together inspired and encouraged me so much! But I want to commend everyone in my life that is living a big story. Thanks to y'all for being a good example to me of what it looks like to live a big story.

Type A: THE ACHIEVER

I've learned a lot about myself over the last five months of clinicals- lots of things have been new lessons, and some have been the same lessons from earlier in life, just repeated.
The one lesson that keeps blaring loudly into my life over and over is how I find my worth and identity in what I accomplish and achieve on a daily basis.
Since finishing PT school classes in May I have realized what it's like to have FREE TIME. It was a foreign concept for me to have free time up until now with school and athletics taking over most of my life but now I have weekends and nights off. The thing that's sad though is that I never take this time to relax or rest. I always fill up my time with things. If I don't fill up my schedule then I go crazy. I start to feel lazy, unproductive and worthless because I'm not getting things done, I'm not accomplishing things, and I'm not checking things off my to-do list.
I have been working 4-twelve hour shifts a week here in CO so I have one day off in the middle of the week. Even though I have the whole day off  I have the hardest time letting myself relax or take it easy. The truth is that when I have time off I literally DON'T KNOW HOW TO RELAX. I feel like I need to be productive 24/7. I've always lived wanting to use every moment to achieve or accomplish something so to not do that is so foreign.
 My wonderful mother has been the one that has been pointing out this area of struggle in my life. When I was last sick in July my mom sent me an email that talked about a personality test that she had taken called the Enneagram. I don't know if anyone is familiar with the Enneagram but you take a test and it tells you what personality type you are. She thought that I was the  "THE ACHIEVER
The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type: Adaptive, Excelling, Driven, and Image-Conscious" and that I was believing the statement "I produce, therefore I am." The description was "these people work hard to succeed and they hate to fail. They are threatened by illness and inactivity makes them crazy. The life task of these people is to see sickness as a signal, a chance for transformation."
When my mom sent me this email I was quick to tell her that it didn't describe me. But the truth is that it describes me perfectly. Why do we always deny things that are completely true? Well in this case it's because I didn't want to admit this was true, but it totally was and still is. I love to achieve things and I hate to not accomplish anything. The hardest times in my life have always been times of illness and injury because I am not able to perform and accomplish things like I want to.  Starting in high school I had multiple bouts of mono and injuries which forced me to rest and be "unproductive". These periods of ilness and injury have continued throughout college and grad school. You'd think that I would have learned my lesson by now right? Well I guess I'm a slow learner!
Why can't I be okay doing nothing? Why can't I sit and relax without feeling obligated to do something?
Why do I have to convince myself that its okay to only workout for an hour? or that its okay to not workout at all?
Why do I have to reassure myself that its okay to be alone? and that I don't have to be helping people and encouraging others all day long?
Why do I have to remind myself that its okay to not be busy every single second? and that just because I have a PT boards licensure test coming up doesn't mean I have to study 24-7. And just because I don't have a job yet doesn't mean I have to use every minute to apply for jobs.
The only reason these things are okay is because my identity is not found in what I produce and accomplish in a day. It is found in Christ alone. He is going to love me no more if I cross off all 20 things on my to-do list, or if I cross off zero.
I am not loved by the Lord because I produce and accomplish things and because I have "good" time management skills. I am loved by the Lord because I am his daughter, and he made me and knows me better than anyone else. Once I start to really know and understand this love then hopefully I will be okay with taking a day off and just being... Hopefully someday soon I will be able to rest and not go manic thinking of all the things that I should be doing with my "free time".
One of my favorite quotes is:"We rarely stop to face and feel the deep hunger and thirst in our souls that are meant for God" This is so true in my life. I rarely stop or slow down to feel or see my need for God.  I very infrequently take a break to remember that nothing here on earth is going to satisfy me like the Lord will.
Whether you can relate to this addiction of achieving or not I hope that you can find rest today in who you are, a beloved child of God. You can do nothing more to achieve that. Your identity is in him alone. Set the list of things to-do aside and rest in the Lord's love for you.


If you're interested in more info on the Enneagram you can go here http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/TypeThree.asp