Life in all its essence is oh so beautiful.
These past weeks have truly gone by in a whirlwind, leaving me star struck by
the power of my God. On Friday we got to pick up my long lost twin after 6
months overseas; our 1st hug after 6 months was one of the best
moments of my life—to witness the moment I’d been praying for become reality.
We were treated to an ethnic meal with dishes from Morocco, Nepal, Africa,
Chile, Asia, Malawi & other foreign countries of which I’ve never
experienced; it was so neat to taste foods from different cultures and to
enliven the experiences each team had. After our delicious meal, each team gave
a presentation of their trip and enlightened us with the miracles God had done
through them as well as taught each one of them. After the presentations, the
REACHers were dismissed to a separate room from the nonREACHers; since I, as
well as some others arrived late, we decided to clean up the beyond messy
dinner room to save the staff some much needed time and energy—it was truly a
blast and felt so rewarding to serve without even being asked but merely
wanting to help out in any way possible. Once the room was spotless and every
crumb picked up, we headed over to the conference room to locate our reunited
family and head home with an extra passenger: BAM aka Brian. After two hours or
so, I was in my bed with the neighboring bed filled with the breath and life of
my actual twin—God is SO good! We’ve spent this whole week hanging out and
taking advantage of each and every moment together, reunited stronger than ever
after many answered prayers.
Today was nothing short of amazing, to say
the least, with many unplanned spontaneous adventures around each corner! This
morning our phone rang & a strange voice answered, asking for Chelsea;
after listening for a few minutes, I made out through the rough connection him
asking me what I was up to and other things about my personal life which beyond
freaked me out for multiple reasons: 1) I didn’t know who “Justin” was at the
moment 2) he sounded foreign and creepy (these two things are not related: I’m
NOT racist!) 3) I thought he was a stalker/creeper who’d hacked into my
information. Combining all these things in my already flustered mind, I hung up
on him. After calling my home phone 3x as well as my cell phone another 3x, I
was amused yet still freaked out, but after listening to my message I felt like
a complete idiot as I could clearly hear the voice of my innocent yet not so
innocent cousin overseas; yes, this is my first “blonde moment” of the day!
Another day spent volunteering at Akron
Children’s was nothing short of amazing as I was reunited with my original
Wednesday Locust desk buddies of whom I’ve learned to love beyond words. Errand
running will always hold a special place in my heart, as the first thing I’d
ever volunteered doing thus becoming my passion—the adventure awaiting each
moment is priceless and beyond description, leaving my heart born for adventure
pumping faster with every breath. After many errands up and down too many
flights of stairs to count as well as endless trips to the Considine Building, I along
with the girl I was training ran unexpectedly into several familiar faces of
whose presence I could not deny as a “God thing”—there was no doubt in my mind
that this very moment was predestined by the Almighty God of the Universe aka
my Father. After talking/catching up and agreeing to take their stool (poop)
specimen to the lab, since as a matter of fact that’s what we do, my fellow
volunteer and I headed to the lab with the "poop at hand"! Heehee. After being
turned down by the first lab, we took a trip to the outpatient lab where the
attendant was completely freaked out by the stool aka poop; sheer horror overtook her
face as she said “Eeew, no, we don’t do that” and kept grossing out on us;
thoughts of the tests they run and samples they take every single day consumed
my much-humored mind as we burst out into laughter after leaving the office. The
experience, to say the least, was priceless and left me laughing throughout the
day. After the second attempt at the first lab, with paperwork at hand, they accepted
the stool samples we’d been carrying along with us around the hospital, everywhere we went—oh the joys of
working in a hospital! ;) Once we got
back, we headed to training for our new computers programs being installed
throughout the hospital; after accidentally coming across the room it was held
in while meandering through each hallway as lost souls, pride overtook my mind
as I didn’t want to follow directions since I’d already found the location once
and was convinced I knew best. After dragging two other volunteers, both very
doubtful as to my sense of direction, we ended up getting lost in one of the
many hallways, so thus sought the directions we’d originally been given, leading
us without any problems to the place we needed to be; my lesson for the day was
to ASK for help which I so very much hate to do! Once we got back to the desk
and I could finally relax, I checked my phone to see a text from my bff telling
me she had a feeling I’d find out about the nursing program very soon; turns
out that as soon as I checked my email, there it sat…the long awaited
acceptance letter into the 2012 Fall Nursing Program at Kent Stark. Shock
overtook my face and all of my volunteers just stared at me, wishing they had a
camera to capture my reaction. In all honesty, it doesn’t seem real; after
nineteen years or more of telling myself I’d NEVER be a nurse, I’m now enrolled
as one of the fifty annual nursing students at Kent Stark, thus coming closer
and closer within reach of the title BSN behind my name—it sounds scary! God
deserves nothing less than total credit as none of this is possible in my own
feeble strength. Why God chose me, I have no idea; I truly believe that the
most beautiful gift I have been given is the chance to go through unthinkable
pain because my eyes have been opened to a new level—truly no words can even
begin to do justice the beauty of pain!
