Reunited

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 1^st 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!