Words of Truth

>It has been 3 months since I have updated my blog. Just, wow. Where to start?

I am still working as a nurse at the hospital. My hours that were cut have never come back. F’rinstance, I am at work tonight, but they floated me out to a different unit since our 40 bed unit has only 21 patients. They had to float three of us out to different units, sent one person to be a “sitter” with someone who is either suicidal or deranged (a safety risk or something), and they cancelled one other person. I responded to the lack of work by getting hired at Nursefinders. I have worked exactly two jobs for them. Well, one was a flu clinic where I worked for 2.5 hours and got paid for 4. That was pretty good. If I could get a full time gig doing that, it would be nice. Work 25 hours a week and get paid for 40? Sign. Me. Up.

The second job was this semi-quadriplegic (he has some use of his arms) that I had to go to his house four days a week to help him out with a dressing change and other nursing stuff. It wasn’t bad work, but when I factored in the cost of gas, driving there (Nursefinders doesn’t reimburse for those), etc, I was making almost half of what I make at the hospital. Not worth it. I would rather work at Target. That and he was some kind of Satanist who liked to antagonize me and mock my beliefs. I can understand bearing up under persecution, but why willingly put myself in that position? After a few weeks I told them I wasn’t going back. I haven’t gotten a job from them after the flu clinic in November.

Since Nursefinders didn’t work out, I decided to apply at other area hospitals, even though they would probably require me to work weekends (which I can’t do, since that’s what I work at my current job). I had an interview at the hospital closest to my house, and they offered me a job last Wednesday. Orientation starts next monday (right after the Super Bowl). Hopefully this solves our “not enough money” problem.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, the Colts are going to their FOURTH Super Bowl! Strangely enough, all four have been in Miami, FL. We lost Super Bowl III to the Jets, then won Super Bowl V against the Cowboys. We all know what happened three years ago in Super Bowl 41, and we all know what’s going to happen next week, right? We are going to beat the Saints. BTW, kudos to the Saints for getting to the Super Bowl for the first time ever. Seriously, the team has existed since 1967, and this is their first trip. Unfortunately they had to pick a year the Colts got to the big show. Bummer for them 🙂

My plantar fasciitis has mostly gone away, but I haven’t been exercising, so I gained back the 25 pounds I lost last summer. So now it’s back to the drawing board. I found out that the Indianapolis YMCA entered into a “relationship” with my hospital, so now I get a 15% discount off the monthly fee. This is good, because my wife can now swim (her joints give her problems when she does high impact exercise) and we can both start getting more active. Now if I can just eschew the chewing.

I haven’t ridden my motorcycle in over two months because it’s been either icy, snowy, or freezing. Every time the temperature gets up around 40 degrees, it’s also raining. Raining on a motorcycle at 70 degrees is fun. Raining at 40 degrees is no fun. Make a note.

I am so happy Scott Brown won the Senate seat in Massachusetts, since this means we won’t have socialized health care. Yay, MA voters!

That’s all for now.

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<——My life is like that. Sometimes I'm really amazed at how life seems great one minute, and so incredibly hard another minute. Great happiness is followed by great sorrow. But the biblical meaning of the word "joy" is what encourages me. Joy is the state of mind whereby we recognize that: 1. God is in control, 2. God loves us, and 3. God has a plan.

A friend of mine from church recently gave an illustration that I think is appropriate and poignant. She said that a turtle had crawled up to her house from the pond, where it lived. She lured it into a bucket and carried it back down to the pond. She said that she felt like we are the turtle sometimes: God puts us in a bucket so He can take us where He knows we will thrive. We don’t understand the bucket, we don’t like the bucket. It’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, but in the end, we are glad we were in the bucket. Thanks for the illustration, Robin!

I went to a church picnic/hayride tonight with my family. We really enjoyed the fellowship with other believers. The food was ok, but what was exceptional was getting to spend time with these people that we will be with for the rest of eternity. My kids rode in the hayride, and I got to play a little touch football with some of the teen guys from my Sunday school class. I went down a few times, and I was glad to see that I still know how to fall (roll, baby!). I have a twinge in my knee right now, but I’m sure that will go away after a few days.

Speaking of twinges, I have had this irritating pain in my heels for the past several months. I started feeling it back in May or June (I know it was before I went to Seattle for the Tiger cruise). I assumed it was just soreness from me being on my feet a lot at work, and wearing shoes with bad support. I got better shoes, and I haven’t been working as much (due to the lack of overtime at work), but my heels haven’t gotten better. They hurt the worst when I get out of bed, and the pain lessens with stretching. The pain stays throughout the day, but it’s not bad enough that I would get them looked at by a doctor. So, enter the nurse mindset: find out what the problem is before I go to a doctor. After doing some research, I have determined that it is highly likely that I have (drumroll please)…….plantar fasciitis!!

Basically I need to do a bunch of stretches, make sure I have good arch support in my shoes, and stop jogging for now. I’m going to start riding my bike instead, and while my feet will appreciate that, my rear will be sore from the seat. Bummer. The fasciitis should clear up in the next several months, and then I can start jogging again. God is good, and He loves me as much as He loves His own Son (John 17:23).

Sports: The Hawkeyes are now 6-0 (undefeated!) with their best start since 1985. The Colts are 4-0 (soon to be 5-0, hopefully, going into the bye week). I am currently 4-0 in my fantasy football league, and the Cubs are playing golf.

Weather: It rained for the past few days here in Indiana, so I didn’t ride my motorcycle. I mean, I will ride in the rain in a pinch, but it takes longer to get suited up and unsuited when I get to work. It’s supposed to be nice until Wednesday, so I should be riding to work on Sunday and Monday nights.

Work: There is still no overtime at work, but I have been hired (I guess) by Nursefinders, which is a nursing “temp” agency, and I should be able to get some work through them. Orientation is Tuesday morning, and then I can start picking up hours. We’ll see how that goes.

Education: I am still vacillating on getting my MSN degree. It would take three more years of school, but at the end I would be a Nurse Practitioner (kind of like a doctor, but different), and I would have a more stable work situation. In order to start next fall, I need to have my application processed by February, and I would need to start classes this January (for the two prerequisites I need). I’m still trying to decide if it’s worth it.

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Here I sit at work. I have four patients and an empty room, just waiting for an admission to pop up on the screen. This is a rare moment: I am all caught up with my patients, and it isn’t time to start morning work yet (drawing labs, vital signs, medications, etc). I thought, hey, I’ll update my blog!

What am I reading? I am currently reading three books:

1. Riders of the Storm by Julie Czerneda. This is book two in the series, and I am enjoying it as much as I did the first. I highly recommend any of her books except the Species Imperative series. I didn’t really get into those, but the rest of her books are top notch!!
2. Disciplines of a Godly Man by R. Kent Hughes. This is an excellent book on learning the basics of Christian living for men.
3. Getting The Gospel Right: A Balanced View Of Salvation Truth by C. Gordon Olson. A guy at church loaned me this book because he and I are having an ongoing discussion about Calvinism. I am a “4 point Calvinist,” and he disagrees with me. He said that I should read this book by Olson, so I am approaching it with a cautious eye, since he has revealed that I will probably disagree with the author.

Here’s some background on Calvinism for those of you unfamiliar with it: Boiled down to the basics, a “Calvinist” believes in “five points” which can be remembered with the acrostic “TULIP.” They are:

• Total Depravity (all men are sinners, and unable to come to God on their own)
• Unconditional Election (God has chosen who will be saved. These people are called “the elect.”” His choice is not based on anything He sees in the person saved)
• Limited Atonement (Christ died only for the elect.)
• Irresistible Grace (When God calls someone to salvation, they cannot resist His call. They WILL be saved).
• Perseverance of the Saints (You cannot lose your salvation).

I call myself a “4 point Calvinist” because I don’t believe in limited atonement. I think the Bible is clear that Christ died for all mankind, and this doesn’t match up with the idea of limited atonement. The argument I keep hearing from non-Calvinists is that God’s offer of salvation is not a legitimate offer if He has decided already who will and who won’t be saved. My answer would be that God offers salvation to all, but only those whom He chooses will turn to Him. This is not an easy thing for us to understand, but God is sovereign.

The question that arises is, “how do you know if you are elect?” The answer is, “how do you know you were born an American citizen?” Why did God choose to place you in your family here in the US, and not in Zimbabwe, Azerbaijan, or Colombia? Only He knows, but He chose where to place you. I heard a preacher say once that when a person looks at the offer of salvation, it’s like he’s looking at a gate, and the arch over the gate says, “Whosoever will may come.” He walks through the gate, and turns around. On the opposite (inside) of the gate, it says, “Chosen before the foundation of the world.” How do we know we are elect? Because we have trusted in Christ as Savior.

The trap of Calvinism is the temptation to think, “If God is going to save all of the elect no matter what I do, then why should I evangelize?” This idea totally contradicts the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 and the general teaching of the NT, which is very evangelistic in nature. It’s like the Indianapolis Colts playing a game of football against a junior high team. The outcome is certain, but the game still must be played. What happens if five Colts players don’t bother to show up? The Colts still win, but those five players don’t get to participate in the win. Does God NEED us to spread His Word? No. But He chooses to USE us, and if we have been saved by His grace, it is the ultimate in hubris, ingratitude, etc to not do whatever He asks of us.

>Sometimes you look at your problems, and they seem insurmountable. You don’t know what to do, you don’t know who you can turn to, and you wonder what is going to happen. And then you look around and realize that there is always someone else with a worse problem, someone who would trade places with you in a heartbeat.

For those of you who pray, I would appreciate prayer. For some reason, the census at the hospital (number of patients) for the past five months has plummeted, and we normally run about half full. For the first four years that I worked here, our unit almost always ended the night with 40 patients in our 40 bed unit. Since April or May (I forget when), we have had an average of 20-30 patients. What this means is that the overtime which I relied on to pay our bills has disappeared. We budgeted for me to work one OT shift per week, and I haven’t had a single OT shift in six weeks. This constitutes a net loss of 25% of our income.

We don’t know why this is happening, but we are trusting God that He does know, and that He has a plan to help us get through this. I am currently looking for a part time job, we have even discussed my wife getting a part time job while the kids are in school, but it seems ridiculous for her to get a job making $8 an hour, when I can make $20-$30 as a nurse.

So, back to the opening paragraph. I have been trying hard to not worry, to trust God, and my problem keeps coming back. Then tonight I realized that some people live in abusive relationships, some people are in jail, some people live with horrible addictions and circumstances that, to me, would seem insurmountable.

Some do not have the love of a spouse in whom they can trust implicitly. Some do not have happy, healthy children who are always willing to hug or smile when you walk through the door. I look at my life and think, even if God does not provide the money we need, I am truly blessed, and I am thankful.