IT'S A NEW DAY

It's a new day today: after an almost-4-year hiatus, I am back on the blog! June 2023: a year and one month post the trauma of nursing school. It's been a busy year, with both painful heartbreak and joyful firsts.

Over the past year, I have:

• started my first full-time job ever, working nights as a med-surg RN
• made my first "grown-up" paycheck ever
• spent way-too-many sleepless nights camped on hospital beds
• buried three precious members of my immediate family
• overseen my first house sale
• moved my 83-year-old mother in to live with me
• made my first solo international trip ever, touching down on two foreign continents and navigating multiple international airports
• bought a car - and car insurance - for the first time ever
• been pulled over for speeding for the first time ever (What can I say? The new car is so QUIET!)
• started my second full-time job ever, as a home hospice nurse
• fallen in love with complete strangers faster than I ever imagined possible, and wept bitterly at their passing
• planned and enjoyed my first-ever family vacation with my kids and grands

A few things learned - or relearned - over the past year + a month:

• Sleep - especially sleep at NIGHT - is a wonderful gift.
• I (still) LOVE the beach.
• STUFF is a burden and a bondage.
• People are beautiful and incredibly broken.
• None of us is promised tomorrow. Every day is precious.
• A bitter, critical spirit drowns out one's insistent claims of knowing and loving Jesus.
• A kind and gentle spirit married to humble service and tender compassion toward "the least of these" speaks the name of Jesus more efficaciously than any degree, title, or affiliation.
• God is sovereign. God is faithful. God is good.

It's a new day today...

It feels good to be back. I am ready to write.