This initially seemed like a silly thing to post, but it won’t go away, so I will, simple as that. I often find myself blindsided by spiritual truth, and it happened today. It was a lot to draw from holding the door open for someone, but it was one of those beautiful moments that reminded me why I went into nursing school, who I’m doing it for, and what the overarching effect of that will be.

I was walking out of the mall, and I noticed a woman struggling to get her stroller out the door. She was holding the door with one hand, backing through it, and trying to get one of those utterly enormous stroller/carseat combo units through at the same time. I ran up and held the door for her. Don’t clap, it’s what I do. She said thank you, and I noticed it wasn’t one of those simple thank yous, it was a ‘thank you, that door was kicking my butt’ thank you. There were two doors for her to get through, so I walked around in front of her and held the second door open.

At this point, I had one of those strange spiritual truth moments where everything sort of goes in slow motion. I looked at this woman in the face for the first time, and I realized she wasn’t a woman yet. She couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old at the absolute top end, and here she was with a child. As I held that door for her, she looked at me for a couple seconds, and she said thank you again, and she said it in a tone much like astonishment. The way she looked at me, it was like I had just handed her a check for a million dollars, like my holding that door for her was the first ray of light anybody had shone into her world in a long time. I realized that if she was a single mom, then that was likely. It sounds crazy, but it literally shook me to my core.

The whole thing didn’t last more than maybe 15 seconds, but for some reason it stuck with me. As I walked across the parking lot, I thought about what we’ve learned in maternity class about the number of teen pregnancies, and how to care for them, how scared they are, how uncertain of just about everything. One of the great things about nursing is that you can’t judge people if you want to do your job. Period. Leave all your crap at the door and just CARE for people, no matter how they got where they are.

Then I moved on from the immediate situation to the greater spiritual truth. I realized how awful it is that the church and Christians as a whole so often look down on teen moms, single moms, just because they made a mistake somewhere along the line. Who the hell do we think we are to judge like that, as if no one could point at us and say “You made a mistake HERE, that’s a reason for me to look down on YOU.” It struck me, the bravery of this young girl, choosing to keep her child in a world where it’s oh so easy to kill it. Choosing to deal with all the stigma, all the stereotyping, all the crap people will put her through because she’s a teen mom. Her baby was more important.

Now, I will say this isn’t an immediate problem at KPC, thank God. But I find it I interesting that churches across the nation make this great stand for pro-life, and abolition of abortion, but then when the poor confused child that is the mother decides to make the right decision and keep her baby, they’re STILL looked down on like some kind of social lepers. What’s that all about? It’s blatantly unfair, hypocritical, judgmental, and unloving is what it is.

It’s my responsibility as a nurse, and our responsibility as Christians, to look past all the petty reasons why someone is where they are and try to help them. That’s loving as Christ loves the church. I’ve found that I love caring for people no matter what. I take great joy in completely ignoring all the politics and saying “You’re hurting, how can I help?” Obviously there are times when you can’t do that, when there has to be answers, but I’d say at least 8 times out of every 10, we as Christians can vastly improve our lives and the lives of others by putting aside our asinine moral expectations that we think every non-Christian in the world should automatically follow, and simply LOVING them as Christ loved his church. Unconditionally. Wholeheartedly. Unceasingly. Unjudgmentally.

Hey everybody! I'm on spring break, so i figured I should probably update at least once this week, if only out of principle. This one’s gonna run LONG. Catherine posted an excellent essay on the proper roles of men and women in relationships last week, and I've been mulling over it ever since. She's precisely correct in everything she says in that post, but I did want to highlight a few things from that post, expand on them, and in some cases provide a response from the male perspective, mainly because I like thinking about things.

I want to clarify that NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I am saying here can be applied to every man you meet. There are millions of men out there who are COMPLETELY outside the will of God, refusing to operate the way he wants them to, turning their back on their families and children, and generally making it extraordinarily difficult for the few trustworthy god fearing men still in existence to get by. This post is written from the perspective of a male trying very hard to operate within the will of God in all areas, even though I’m less than successful most of the time. That said:

First and foremost, I do not think that women need men to get anywhere in life. I know women who have been through more at the age of 20 than any person should ever have to deal with in a lifetime, and they’ve learned, adapted, grown closer to God, and become or continue to be Christians so firm they make me embarrassed to be called one myself. Women can and do get along just fine without men.

But I don’t believe that’s the way God wants it. We as humans are not designed to work alone. To put it simply, each person has the ability to display every emotion there is, but men naturally display one set, and women another.

Men are aggressive, protective of what’s ours, masters of our domain if you will. It is instinctive in the heart of every man to carve out his place, to claim what belongs to him, and to defend it to the death. This all sounds very macho, but there’s another side to it as well. A man operating the way God wants him to will find his place, claim his ownership, and viciously defend it to his last breath against all invaders. But to those he is defending, he is loving, caring, considerate, kind, nurturing, sacrificial… he will do everything he can to make sure those inside the nest are safe. We are designed by God to do this. It’s quite simply how families survive.

This is perhaps the most important facet of manhood for women to grasp, because it determines how we will deal with literally every situation. If you come against that which is mine, that which I protect, I will not hesitate to tear you apart. If you are under my protection, you can be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will love you and care for you to the best of my ability, to my very last breath. So, this is why guys will do ‘stupid’ things like getting into a fistfight over a girl. We’re protecting those we’ve been charged with protecting, and it really is a matter of honor, because if I fail, I’ve failed in a God given mandate. You ladies didn’t know it was that important, did you? It is.

So, do you see where feminism is so extraordinarily damaging to men? I’m not saying that women need to simply lay down in the road and wait for Prince Charming to come and take care of all their problems, God knows. That’s not the way it should be, and even if it was, it’s not the world we live in anymore, if indeed it ever was. But this is where what I’m saying dovetails with Catherine’s post. Feminism tells you to do everything for yourself, to be independent, to claim equality with and even lordship over men. I have absolutely no problem with equality in most areas, but when women insist that they be allowed to fight all their own battles, to defend themselves, to make all their own money, etc., what they’re doing is stripping away every opportunity we have to exercise our natural manhood. It shows that you don’t trust us to lead. We’re left with no battles to fight, no adventures to live, and no maiden to rescue. Those three things are fundamental to every man. We really do want to sweep you away on a white horse, and we’re more than willing to fight whatever dragons that may entail. If you think I’m lying, I invite every woman reading this to go read Wild At Heart by John Eldridge. It will help you understand the heart of the Christian man.

A true man will be looking for the heart of a true woman, and by that I mean a girl that answers to God before she ever talks to me. One quote I’ve seen says it better than anything else: “A girl’s heart should be so lost in God that a man must seek him to find her.” I want a woman who knows what she believes, and makes me fight for her purity. I want a woman like that because I know if she allows me to lead her anywhere, then she and God have approved me, that I have been weighed, measured, and found fit for the task. A woman like that is a privilege to lead, because she has placed herself under me by her own choice, and her worth is beyond any measure (See Proverbs 31). This is not romanticism, this is Godly design.

So what does all this mean? It means that your submission is not just submission; it is a symbol of your love, respect, and confidence in my ability as a man to lead you safely in God’s will, and to protect you from any earthly harm. Your submission is the greatest and most powerful gift you can give me, and I do not expect to earn it lightly or quickly. As an aside, I also don’t know any man in the world who doesn’t want his wife to keep that defiant spark in her eye and give him a little lip every now and then. As far as I’m concerned, you have to submit in certain areas, but I want to know a woman can mop the floor with me too. :)

Now, many men, and I call them that because I can’t find a better word without swearing, take advantage of this submission to abuse a woman, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Worse yet, some of them simply refuse to acknowledge this idea altogether and use women as sexual objects, running around with whoever they see fit. This is in my opinion the penultimate betrayal. You’ve taken a woman’s safety, a woman who trusted you with her heart, her life, and her well being, and thrown it away like trash. These aren’t men, they’re animals, and they’re a disgrace to the entire sex. This Satanic influence on the natural roles of men and women drives a wedge into a woman’s ability to trust, and I don’t blame them for one second.

I could go on all night, but I think I’ve highlighted most of the important parts. I think it’s important that women have a proper understanding of why men do what they do and act the ways they do, even though you all do a fairly good job figuring it out on your own.

Now that I'm done with everything important, I wanted to hand out a few technical program recommendations. I've been updating and/or finding new programs since I started break, because I'm an organizational freak. A good program makes me happy, and I love passing my happy along. I've been looking for ways to streamline the things I do on my computer, like sorting images, internet usage, etc. Well here they are.

1. Opera Web Browser

I've used Mozilla Firefox for years, because anything is better than the virus portal that is Internet Explorer. But I noticed every time I downloaded a plugin to improve Firefox or make it work the way I wanted, there was some reference to this plugin working 'like Opera.' So I just downloaded Opera. I have never seen a faster, more configurable, more intuitive web browser and e-mail program. Everything you need is contained in a sidebar, and the whole thing is completely configurable. I have also not found anything I dislike that can't be changed yet. I highly recommend it, especially if you're a somewhat technical user and you know how you like things.

2. Picasa

This program is put out by Google, and it's used for cataloguing images into albums so they're easier to find. UPDATE: I've found that this program does not just CATALOG images, it will find them ANYWHERE on your computer, and when you shuffle them around or rename them inside the program, it also moves and renames the physical files on your computer, which is huge. You no longer have to try to find all your stuff, it's automatically gathered for you. It does a ton of things as far as resizing them for prints, editing, etc, but I only need it for its sorting abilities, a job it does admirably. You can add tags to every image, which are written into the image info itself, so then you can search for images by keyword and find things in your library very easily. It takes a lot of time to do that initially, but just take it in chunks and it will be amazingly useful. One other great feature is that you can upload images directly from Picasa to a Picasa web album, which is the equivalent of putting them on photobucket, so you can pop Picasa open, upload your images directly from there, and they're ready to use online. Big deal if you post images in places where YOU have to host them, like message boards. If you have a ton of images to organize, give it a try.

3. iTunes

I've used this program for years, but it continues to be more and more awesome. Seriously, even if you don't use an iPod at all, this program is flat out the best way to organize your music. It doesn't do well with playing most videos, but that's not really what it's for. Download it and use it, especially if you have tons of music. You can use playlists, smart playlists, and tag every file with all the info you could ever want for a song. If you need me to show you why it is the best program in the universe for organizing music, give me a call and I'll do so.

4. GOMPlayer

This is flat out, hands down, the best video program I've ever used. I have never found a video format it doesn't play, and even if it has minor issues with one, it will provide you a link to a plugin you can download to get it moving. Highly recommended if you download or work with video of any kind.

So, that's my Tome of Epic Wisdom for the night. Have a wonderful day, night, or twilight!

EDIT: New music. This is just a great remix I found. I've never played this game, but the remix is simply epic, so up it goes. Download on the left.

It’s 11:25 am, and so far I have found at least 37 different ways to not read my pharmacology book. Not that I don’t want to, I’ll be a good boy eventually. There’s just a kind of ritual, you know. One does not simply DO one’s homework; it must be approached with the proper amount of disdain, however much one likes the subject. The reason for this is that it is, in the end, still homework. This word implies that I should allow it to intrude upon my personal time and consume it utterly, until the only thing I may draw satisfaction from is a large stack of paperwork lurking on my desk like some double spaced monolith, standing in ageless wisdom for a moment before a teacher has her way with it.

It is this fact, I begin to believe, that turns young men into old men, snatches their youth and laughs as it is devoured, shatters lives, and topples nations. How many men have become empty shells of everything they hoped to be, utterly torn and shaken to their very core, and all because they simply DID THEIR HOMEWORK whenever they were asked, without ever considering a good old fashioned rebellion, in the true spirit of the American man? I stand before you today my friends, and I tell you, they may take my lands. They may take my home. But they will NEVER. TAKE. MY. YOUTHFUL LOVE OF DOING PRECISELY WHAT I WANT INSTEAD OF MY HOMEWORK. Etch it in stone, the words shall not change.

It’s somewhat ironic actually. Looking over the first two paragraphs, I truly think it’s this attitude that has helped get me through nursing school thus far. God does the rest, but I know when to stop and when to go. I know instinctively exactly when I need to start something to get it done on time, and I like to push it to the wire because I love the pressure. I do my homework, truly, and I do it well. I can prove this empirically, because there is a 19 page plan of care for my patient sitting next to me, which includes, but is not limited to:

APA formatted cover sheet.

 APA referenced diagnosis of my patient’s main disease process,

APA referenced description of its signs and symptoms,

APA referenced description of how a nurse goes about treating it,

A page of personal information gathered from the patient that I am not legally authorized to share,

Nursing diagnosis number one, including:

Subjective and objective data leading to the diagnosis,

A goal related to the diagnosis,

6 interventions related to that goal,

APA referenced sources showing the scientific rationale for each intervention,

Nursing diagnosis number two, including subjective and objective data leading to the diagnosis,

A goal related to that diagnosis,

6 interventions related to that goal,

APA referenced sources showing the scientific rationale for each of those interventions,

Data on all 15 labs for my patient, including:

APA referenced normal values,

My patient’s results,

APA referenced implications regarding lab results,

All 26 of my patient’s prescribed medications, including:

The name, dosage, frequency, and route of med administration,

APA referenced action for every drug,

The reason the client is taking the med,

APA Referenced nursing implications regarding the use of each med,

APA referenced side effects to watch out for,

And last, but not least, an APA formatted reference page.

 

I have to do one of those every week. If I’m not mistaken in my count, this week’s plan has 102 references from 4 different sources.

But the point of all that is, if I were asking a man to climb Mt. Everest, I probably wouldn’t place a time constraint on him. Nothing like “Hello John, I just need you to nip up and scale Everest for me, here’s your mittens, and a shiny new Alpenstock, do have a good time. What time have we got? 2 pm? If you could be back by 5 with proof that you hit the summit, I’d appreciate it. Might even take you to dinner.”

But that’s our teachers make us do in nursing school, because that's what we as nurses are going to have to do. Take ER for instance. I've only had the pleasure of watching ER nurses in amazement thus far, but it's something like: This patient is unconscious, losing blood, we suspect a lung puncture, there's blood in his airway. Get oxygen started and get suction and air exchange going in his lungs in the next 2 minutes. Do we have ID? Contact his family, let them know what happened. We need 2 units of blood for this patient in the next 5 minutes, or he's going to code. Get an IV started for fluids and meds, clear a spot in the ER, the doctor's on his way to open him up. MOVE.

We (figuratively) scale Everest in 3 hours or less, and I LOVE IT. I’ve found that I work incredibly well under pressure. I call it the symphony of chaos. There’s this amazing thing that happens to me, physically and mentally, when I’m placed under extraordinary pressure. My thinking becomes sharpened, I make decisions quicker, intuition takes over and does its job well, and I flow smoothly from place to place, situation to situation, planning three steps ahead to how I’ll make all the pieces fit when I reach them… it is a complete and total transformation from who I usually am.

So the other night, I was thinking what a bad week I had in nursing school, and came to the astounding realization that I was irritated with my week because there hadn’t been enough to do, and I was BORED. I had no tests and a boring clinical last week, and I couldn’t stand it. I realized that I was incredibly irritated by my homework, because instead of caring for lots of patients like I want to in that clinical environment, getting my hands dirty and helping EVERYWHERE I can, I’m stuck with ONE patient, and I have to stand for half the morning and dig through his charts for tidbits of information. I can’t abide tedious things like that, and there will be much less of it once I’m done with school, praise God. But then I realized that in a much more mundane and tedious way, even the stress of completing these STUPID care plans can be enjoyable, because of the pressure involved in getting them done on time. So I dove in and did probably more care plan than I needed to.

So, if I ever tell you I can’t, I have to do homework, I’m scaling Everest. Give me a few hours. Because I also know that once you hit the summit, you probably need to sit for a few and take in some oxygen. But don’t let me lie to you either, because deep down inside, I’m loving the pressure.

I am so completely, unbelievably, and totally blessed that it’s just about mind boggling. I already said I love nursing school, you know that. But, wow. Just, wow. When I sit back and look at what’s going on in my life since I started nursing school, it’s truly amazing. I took an exam today and got an 80. That’s a C in nursing school, but I’m fine with that, for several reasons.

First things first.  Shortly before I began this semester I logged out of World of Warcraft for the last time, told everyone goodbye, and just stopped playing video games altogether so I could focus on school. I love games, but World of Warcraft is in fact SO fun that if I play it during the semester, it will affect my grades. At any rate, I felt God telling me to hang it up, so I finally did. I truly believe that he has blessed me even more than usual for listening to that request.

You see, nursing school is supposed to kill people. At least, that’s the general consensus among those who are in the midst of it.  But I found something out at the beginning of this semester. If I take good notes in my nursing classes, I don’t even have to read them again. I just remember the majority of the material. Blessing number one. Because of that, I have not actually had to study per se for any of my tests thus far. Hence one of the reasons I’m perfectly happy with an 80. All I had to do was listen to the lecture to get it. This is medical surgical nursing. This is the nursing class that will make people quit voluntarily if pharmacology hasn’t taken them out already. It sucks that we lose so many people. I hope no one else gets cut, and I do my best to help them with what I can, because I love it. I’m not a genius by any means, and I don’t claim to be. I literally feel like God is taking me by the hand here and just leading me through school, and I’m along for the ride. It is amazing. The lack of stress, complete confidence, and peace that I feel on a daily basis is just wonderful. I went to the doctor the other day for something, and they read my blood pressure at 115/80, which is about as absolutely perfect and unstressed as I could be.

The other amazing thing is the level of understanding I have of all this stuff. Now, I don’t pick up all of it, everyone misses something. But more than anything I’ve ever learned, there is cohesiveness to this material that’s just amazing. Everything links together in my mind; I learn something new and immediately think of how it could be affected by other systems, other drugs, other things I’ve learned. This is blessing number three, because the main thing that makes an RN an RN is their ability to analyze what they see in a patient and make connections using knowledge of the human body to analyze what’s wrong. The ability to analyze comes with clinical experience… but I understand without a shadow of a doubt most of what I’m hearing, right down to a chemical level. It’s the most amazing feeling.

But now comes my absolute favorite. Anatomy and physiology. There’s so much to say. For one thing, I do not understand how any human being could take and understand a course in anatomy and physiology and NOT believe in a Sovereign Creator God. I read a chapter of A&P, and it says more to me about the power of God than a full book of the Bible. It’s mindblowing how the body works, how it does almost ANYTHING, what is REQUIRED for us to work properly, and it all just HAPPENS, because God said so. In this course more than any other, I’ve been blessed with almost a total understanding of everything I’ve been taught, from the bottom up, and it just leaves me dumbfounded. I couldn’t necessarily recall it for you exactly in general conversation, but I KNOW it. So, for example, I can tell you, on a chemical level, what chemicals are interacting in what ways to transmit a nerve impulse from your finger to your brain to let you know you’ve stepped on a tack, and from there I can tell you exactly what the brain sends back, where it sends it, and exactly how the muscle contracts that makes you reflexively lift your foot, then how the muscles on the other side of the body tense to keep you from losing your balance; all of that on a chemical level, cell by cell, system by system, from one end to the other.  It would take me almost an hour, but hey. The point is, when I look at the ‘simple’ process of your reaction when you step on a tack, I CANNOT deny the existence of a God. There is simply no way it happened by chance, and I understand it, and that excites me SO MUCH. I don’t say any of that to sound arrogant. It’s proving difficult not to sound arrogant in this post. The reason I’m saying all this is because God is absolutely amazing, and He is allowing me to see and understand some of the deepest levels of His most amazing creation, and all of that so I can do what I really want to and HELP people.

So in summary, I am extraordinarily happy, amazingly blessed, God is absolutely awesome, and this ride I’m on is purely wonderful. Thank you, that is all.

If only I could speak the words to take away your pain... to offer my hand in your sorrows and to help you stand again. I share the burden of your grief, my heart beats with your own, and if I can offer all the strength I have so that you might carry on, I will surely do it.

If only I could speak the words to fill your heart with joy... to lift you up and remind you that you are a child of God. To give you laughter and mirth and help you forget the darkness of this world, if only for a moment. To offer you a loving embrace simply because you are my friend. If I can give you this greatest of gifts, I will surely do it.

If only I could speak the words to help you make a choice... To give wisdom in counsel, that the spirit of confusion will haunt you no more, that you might find the path that God has chosen for you. If by my meager words I can make clearer the will of God, I will surely do it.

If only I could speak the words to put your heart at rest... To calm your fears and soothe your anxious spirit so that you may rest in the all encompassing arms of God. If by my deeds I can calm your fears and still your soul, I will surely do it.

If only I could speak the words to spread the love of Christ... To speak the unfathomable love of my Saviour into the hearts of the condemned, that they may look to Him and share in the glory of His coming kingdom. Lord God, shatter my pride and anoint my heart, that I may boldly speak your message, for if I can lead the lost to you with kind and gentle words, I will surely do it.

May my deeds and voice serve you forever and ever. May I become less as you become more. May I be an emissary of your love to all who know me, God, and let my life reflect the works of your glorious hand, for that is the only life worth living. Amen and Amen.

This was written on April 6th, 2006. I wrote it because it was the true cry of my heart. I didn’t know at the time that my spiritual gifts were perception and exhortation, nor did I have any idea I was going to be in nursing school. Since it was written, I have learned to do every one of those things, all of which involve those two gifts, and even become well known among my friends for many of them. It is my greatest joy to use those gifts, and I now find myself on a career path that will allow me to use them daily. This prayer… this cry of my heart… I didn’t even remember it until tonight. It has been granted down to the letter. My experiences, my friendships, all of it have been part of the answer to this prayer, and I didn’t realize it. That’s astounding to me.