it sounds terribly odd i know, that i although i have returned to the Lord recently, i am trying to discern what God wants me to do. all over again. perhaps i’ve taken it for granted since i was 17 and heard His call for me to be a nurse. maybe i was spiritually immature for a good few years to know that God is definitely capable of charting our paths, nevermind the will He revealed years back. i certainly know for now, through testimonies that God’s will for us, is not set in concrete. He changes it, if He will. but we have to pray and to listen intently, for what He wants us do for Him and how we can serve Him.
pardon me, please. i am still taking baby steps in my spiritual growth.
i am facing problems at work. i was called to be a nurse when i was merely 17, and i gave up a potentially “better future”, fulfilling God’s will. it pleased Him, i hope. i was pleased too, because it became the love of my life. caring for my patients sustained me. they were like my Bread. but even before i graduated, i was hurt by the people around me- teachers and mentors who themselves are nurses with years and decades of experience. everytime i tried, gritting my teeth going back into the wards to work while still sick, i fell. it happened so many times. after i graduated, the same thing happened, except i was now a registered nurse and people have different expectations of me. i tried so hard with treatment and recovery. but with it, work undid all of it. my patients sustained it. it was the interactions with all other colleagues and the stress i place on myself. i felt, or i felt that others felt that i was not good enough. so i did 200%. of course i regressed and eventually fell even further than ever,
going back to work last year, i kept 2 jobs. one was an administrative, which i was not cut out for, and was mercilessly ‘terminated’ for. the other, a clinical job i left, because again of interactions with colleagues i didn’t agree. in all these times i was hurting myself to cope. i was hurting myself seriously to soothe myself, so that i could cope, and so that for the next day i would be ok again. i had to work!
having returned to the Lord… i’ve been facing a lot of tension and an inability to reconcile differences in work culture, standards, safety, and also a difficulty communicating with colleagues because there is always a breakdown, a lack of respect…. i broke down at work today. my nurse clinician thought it was because of the patient, but it was she herself whose raised voice got to me. i got it from her yesterday (which made me tear). she pulled me into the room. it was clear to me she didn’t know why i cried. it was not the patient. it was her, it was the colleagues. when they tear me apart, my mind drifts to wanting to hurt myself. and since throwing all my sharps down my chute, i have thought of such on 2-3 occasions. it torments me, and it makes me feel like i have sinned greatly, just wanting to hurt myself. no doubt, it was my coping mechanism for 5 years. but i can lean on God now, can’t i?
after today, i told myself that it is time for serious discernment. i have put this off for too long. for 2-3 years, my treatment team begged me to quit nursing, but i had always refuted and said NO. it’s my calling and i need to do it. i always said it without a care. i have prayed on and off to God about whether i should stay, or go. but when i kept getting compliments that i’m a good nurse, i feel like i’m making a difference in my patients’ lives, and i procrastinate the whole process again. i also procrastinate, as i told S, because i want to justify my leaving a potentially better future to fulfil God’s calling and serve the sick. it was my pride.
i don’t want to be sad anymore. i don’t want to cry because people tell me, or insinuate right in my face that i’m wrong or i’m not good enough, when i know i am otherwise. i don’t want the tension of being stretched like a rubberband, joyful with my patients, highly strung at the nurses’ counter. i don’t want to put up my shield and wear my armour because arrows come at me everyday. it’s been 5-6 years and yes it is God’s call to me to become a nurse. and i have tried to my utmost capacity. to the point where i’ve fallen sick, into severe depression. i want to tell myself it is enough. i have to move on to something else if i am to find my happiness. if i am to be joyful. yet care for people.
i don’t want it to be seen as me escaping. i know people would say that of me. even my friends say that i give up easily. it looks like i do. after i left my first employer, my current hospital is considered my 3rd employer. and after all that i’ve gone through with nursing, fighting tooth and nail just to practise as a nurse… i really don’t care anymore if people tell me if i’m “weak” or if i “give up easily”. in this journey i can say that i literally almost lost my life a few times. so….
it’ll be a difficult time for me as i pray, and as i ask people around me to keep me in their prayers. i’ll be changing the direction of my life almost totally, although i can always return to nursing in future.
and while i discern, i keep close to me the Litany of Humility, because i really need it at the moment.
Unspeakable Joy 