Saturday, October 25, 2014

7 things neighbor Mary would say if you were discouraged...

Did I tell you about my neighbor Mary who knows everything?  

This is what I heard from her this afternoon when I collapsed on her couch, propping my feet ungracefully on her coffee table, and letting my head fall back against a pillow. 

I was debriefing with her...

....You can put your own name in place of mine!

1.)  There's one word God doesn't want us to say to him Katrina: can't. 

2.) God knows your story; he knows your situation!  

3.) God is for us.  The enemy wants us to think that God is against us, but He for us, Katrina!

4.) There's a lot of people in this world who would want to trade places with us. There are people in this world who have been in bed for 30 years.  Thirty years, Katrina!  

5.)  I'm going to walk the long road home, trusting God.   We got to face some tears in this life.

6.) Don't pray for a blessing on someone who needs God; pray that God chases them. 

7.) God gives us power; he gives us power, Katrina! 

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Instead of the blog I was going to write, 7 things I'm thankful for tonight

I was thinking of calling this blog "Seven things I should have done already", since it's after midnight and I hear my un-dry clothes spinning in the dryer, see my unwashed dishes in the sink over there beyond the pile of unfolded towels, see the un-written blog on this page, and realize I haven't started a PowerPoint that I need to have done by Thursday.

But I changed it to seven things I'm thankful for.  God does such a good job of reminding me to give thanks, and I always feel better when I do.

1.)  I'm thankful that I have clothes and towels and that, even though unfolded and undried, they are washed.  

2.) I'm glad that although the bug I found on my carpet and captured in a jar turned out to be a roach, my neighbor Mary who knows everything is confident that I'll eradicate them once I get to the pet store for a thing she calls "roach bait".  And I'm glad that my house isn't like the one I stayed at in New York City, where we would turn on the lights in the morning, and the roaches would scramble to their hideouts by the dozen. 

3.) I'm really glad for Diet Sierra Mist cranberry splash.

4.) I'm glad that my renewed passport came in the mail the other day, stiff yet silky navy, even though my publishers are still in discussion about whether it's safe for me to go to the Middle East.

5.) I'm glad my friends and I don't have Ebola.  It's truly a terrible disease without a cure. 

6.) I'm thankful that I was able to attend the BetterLife awards ceremony tonight and hear many great volunteer's stories, even though my nomination for Dr. Halloran was edged out by people working for nonprofit organizations.  That was okay though. Thanks for voting by the way!

7.)  I'm thankful this blog post is now complete! 

Saturday, October 11, 2014

My Mom's 57th Birthday, and 7 photos I would mail in her birthday card...

October 15, next Wednesday...This is the day my mom would have turned 57.

Fifty-seven is so young in the world of healthcare. My grandparents are all alive at around 80 years old.

In some ways, the more I learn to know God and the more my heart is softened, the more I miss her. If I could send her a birthday card, here are some photos I would slide in the envelope and some of the things I would tell her.

Did you know you have two sets of twin grandsons?

Did you know you have two beautiful granddaughters and two grandsons, besides Brad who you already know?

Those twins on grandpa's lap love him better than any of the aunts, I'm afraid.




You know how I wanted to be a writer, not a nurse?  I started working and I loved it.  My jobs became a source of healing for me, as I thought about the comparison of the physical heart with the soul.  I'm now a heart surgery coordinator.  I make lists of all the vocabulary words I learn from the surgeons and cardiologists and other well-worded people around me.  I work with a intelligent and caring team, the perfect alternate job for a writer.



This is the front porch of the house I bought after I started at my new job and realized God wanted me to stay in Elkhart.  In the process, some of my best friends also moved to Elkhart and I love going to their houses.  


This is my mentor and work partner Sue and I on pink hard hat day.  We made a human pink ribbon on the top floor of the parking garage.


We found the baby clothes you left us in the closet!





I have so many people who bless my life, that I wish I was better at blessing them back and not being impatient when people knock on my door.


















Happy Birthday! 

Maybe she already knows all of this....how can we know?  And if I would have time, I would tell her how God has blessed me several specific times on her birthday....so much so that I begin to wonder, what good thing will God do for me this October 15th?  But the truth is, I have so many blessings already, perhaps I wouldn't even notice.....God is so good.


Saturday, October 4, 2014

If beheaded and given a chance at last words, 7 things I would want to say...

I'm sorry if you're tired of my beheading drama...I really need to knock it off and realize the seriousness of what I'm saying, yes? 

But I have to say one more thing....as I was contemplating what it would be like to be beheaded, I wondered if I would be given a chance to say something (which I probably wouldn't) what I would say.

I've heard that every person should write their own obituary now and then to give themselves perspective, so in the spirit of that exercise, here goes. 

I would want to be able to say some sentimental things and some poetic things and some practical things...
1. I wonder what my mom will say when I come bouncing into heaven to find her!

2. I'm going to miss twilight, the time of day when the darkness and the light trade places, especially on the streets of Elkhart, or in Marshfield where I grew up. (But maybe there's a twilight in heaven.)  I think I would like for just one moment to set foot in America again....just to walk into a gas station to buy a Diet Coke after pumping a tank of gas, or to walk over the uneven cement of a sidewalk or to run at dusk to the river and clatter across the wooden bridges in the park....to see the Badlands of South Dakota again, or eat a buttery biscuit in Alabama, or sit quietly in a library among the odors of paper and the click of computer keys.  What a great life I have had, to have so many tiny little wonderful memories.

3. I wish I could see my weekly videos and photos of my niece Mya, watch her and all her cousins grow up, and play word games with their parents and aunt and grandfather and argue about geeky things no sane family should argue about at Christmas. But, maybe there's a peek hole in heaven.



4. I wish I could go to work again and get brutally teased by the surgeons and quizzed by the case managers and cornered by the pharmacists and questioned by the other nurses and paged by the cath lab and and ridiculed by the physician's assistants for eating a sausage pizza from the bistro. 

5. I wish I could walk home from work and stop at my hang-out house on Laurel street and eat a couple of gummy O's and lounge on my favorite couch and shoot the breeze before crossing the Sherman Street Bridge to my own house. 

6.  Oh death, where is your sting? Oh grave, where is your victory?   The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed...

7. God is with me...and this realization, the most powerful force in the world, is stronger than all hate, than any nation, than any defeat.  

I hope I could think clearly enough to say a few things like that.  

What seven things would you say?  

(No guillotine talk next week!  Promise!)