Saturday, September 27, 2014

Why I hope to go to the Middle East, and 7 people's responses

God is so creative, so personal!  How on earth does He know our minds? How did he know my wish to go to the Middle East to write when I hadn't told him? After months of not hearing from my publishing house, I received an email last week asking me if I still wanted to write for them.  I said maybe, and asked if they had any ideas. 
He gave me a list of possible topics .  Second to the last: 
Syrian refugees §  Would have to travel to the middle east

I got the email while at work.  I nearly spontaneously combusted in the little critical care snack area.  My excitement was so evident that a bystander asked what was going on. 

I shared the email. 

1.  Chris looked at me as if I had gone suddenly insane and he should stuff a Xanax down my throat.  

Most people responded in a similar fashion with variations reflecting their personalities. 

2.   Christine threatened to email my family herself and told me I should not go. 

3.  Dr. Halloran said, "You are not going to Syria right now." He added that there are plenty of safer places than Syria to find Syrian refugees....an excellent point. 

When I got off work, I emailed my family and talked to my dad. 

4.  Scott, my older brother, replied to the email:  

Thanks for the update.  Definitely glad for the heads up before we see it in the news!

5.  Dad said that he had just told someone that any journalist who goes to Syria now basically deserves to be beheaded for being so unwise (those weren't his exact words)... never anticipating that his daughter was next in line.   

When I told my dad that I'm sure they would send me to a safe place, he said, "I'm sure that's what all the other journalists thought."  I hadn't thought of that before. 

I told him that's the kind of death I want to die...not now necessarily, and not foolishly, but dying for a worthy cause.

He pointed out (why are dads so wise?) that dying was probably the best part of their kidnapping experience.  

6.  The lady at the passport office who let me smile for my picture said, "There's probably a travel warning right now," with an ominous chuckle.



7.  My aunt and uncle suggested that I take a picture before I go.  
"You'd rather have a picture of me with my head on?"  
Yes, they said. 

And God?  His latest response to me has to do with my stressing over my upstairs lodger, and the little girls knocking on my door, and the speech I feel too tired to prepare, and the coffee I spilled all over my kitchen table.  He gently reminded me that all of life is a struggle, and can be handled poorly or well, without Him or with Him.  Going to Syria to chronicle stories of suffering is no more of a ministry than living well on Brady Street.  

So while I wait to see if I in fact will go to the Middle East, He teasingly suggested that I live well in the meantime.

God is so good!  
He is with us wherever we are, and wherever we go. 






Saturday, September 20, 2014

7 Perks of Being at Work for 21 Hours Straight

1.  It makes a 12 hour day feel almost like a day off.
2.  You learn that some disorder is self-limiting. Clean laundry piles (that haven't been put away) actually begin to disappear, since you are forced to take clothes off the pile.
3.  You're not burdened with the forecast.  You just completely missed that day's weather.  Who cares if it rained or didn't rain?
4.  You get a long nap, instead of a short night.
5.  You don't miss much of what went on while you weren't at work, because it was only a few hours.
6.  Meals lose their identity.  Breakfast could be leftover pizza or hard-boiled eggs or a sugar cookie.  (Are you sensing that my diet did not get reformed this week?)
7.  As Dr. Dickson announced late last night after a challenging seven hour surgery, "Who wants to be in bed at this time of the night anyway?"  

*Don't forget to vote for my story about Dr. Halloran a few more times before the contest is over!  Voting ends this Wednesday, September 24.*

http://www.mutual125.com/stories/walter-halloran/


Dr. Dickson, speaking to our kids about the heart at boys and girls club last year.










Saturday, September 13, 2014

7 Reasons You Should Vote for My Boss...

1. There's a community competition going on right now for a "better life" award.  
2. Dr. Halloran, one of the heart surgeons for whom I attempt to work, was nominated for his outstanding bedside manner with his patients and their family members.  (This compassionate nature was re-emphasized last Monday when he finished surgery at 1am and still took time to sit and talk with the patient's family after a 19-hour day.)
3. You can read the story I wrote at the link below, or if that's too much trouble, you can just vote with your morning coffee. (He approved my accurate story reluctantly, saying it was too kind.)
4. If he wins the award, he chooses a non-profit organization to receive the prize money.  (If he doesn't, his most inexperienced staff will be drug off to surgery without anesthesia for the medical students to practice on...VOTE, I said!)
5. It's easy! Just click on the link below. You don't even have to give your name. Voting continues until September 24th. Competition was fierce the last time they let us see total votes! 
6. When I was threatening to submit my story, I told him he might be too famous to win. They probably want to award an ordinary person who hasn't already been on a billboard. But it never hurts to try...
7. Thank you! 


http://www.mutual125.com/stories/walter-halloran/



Saturday, September 6, 2014

After several weeks of McDonald's and junk food, 7 Reasons to Begin Again!

  1. The scale.  (How can an inanimate object be so annoying, yet so inspiring?!)
  2. The lean cardiologists I bump into around the hospital, who spend their days counseling people who eat like I've been eating lately and are DYING BECAUSE OF IT.   Dr. Westerhausen's voice in particularly drifts up to me out of my McDonald's bag like an uncanny echo caught in the paper and foil.  If I'm ordering a Jalapeno Burger, I can't seem to escape the nagging fear of looking up and seeing one of them.  The only thing that makes this fear unrealistic? They probably don't know what McDonald's is, or where you would find one. 
  3. The ladies at my church, who try to stay accountable and disciplined, or share their own struggles to eat nutritious food.
  4. My co-worker Christine, who goes home and exercises even after long days in the operating room.
  5. C.S. Lewis, who said,

    “You must ask for God's help. Even when you have done so, it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need, is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again...Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.” 

  6. Jesus Christ, that great champion of calm self-denial.                "...You who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus who was faithful to him who appointed him..." Hebrews 3:1-2
  7. THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH RE-STARTING MULTIPLE TIMES IS IF YOU DON'T!