Nursing: a degree that honors the profession is not the evidence of competence

(A Red Cross nurse in France)

Today is the last day of my second week in the BSN online program at GCU.  Tonight after 14 hours at work I submitted the first collegiate paper I've written in 17 years.  The assignment:  A formal 750-1000 word paper discussing the difference in competency between the associates prepared nurse and the  baccalaureate prepared nurse, as well as identifying a patient care situation where approaches to nursing care or decision making might differ in having a BSN versus a diploma or associates degree in nursing.  In my initial attempt I wrote 500 words without thinking twice and found all I had was an impassioned argument for why the RN, BSN isn't any more competent than the RN, ADN.  It hit a nerve.  But what developed I think was a pretty well thought out paper which addressed the subject matter the instructor wanted while pointing out that the perspective taken in writing this paper all depends on how you view competency.  The main difference in competency is not clinical skills for bedside nursing.  The main difference is competency in being seen as a professional amongst other health care professionals, and in honoring the leading role nursing is in health care with a degree which is fitting.  Nurses with BSN degrees can move into leadership positions and be seen by their cohorts as professionals.  Nurses with BSN degrees raise the bar for how nursing is viewed.

Nursing has evolved over it history from a job seen only fitting for, "an ignorant woman, who was not fit for anything else," (Draper, 1893/1949) where nurses blindly obeyed doctors orders without questions.  Nurses in American history strove to get nursing to be seen as a profession with a unique perspective on health care.  And they weren't wrong to strive for that.  Nursing is a profession.  It isn't mindless task work.  Nurses today have to manage the health care of acutely complexly ill patients while collaborating with doctors, therapists, and other health care professionals.  The truth is nurses are professional health care providers.  But that truth is being pushed to light in a system that is still trying to work in the dark with nurses as medicine delivery technicians. Nurse's are expected to have the knowledge of their professional cohorts while working in environments that continue to expect timed tasked work.  Other health care professionals in the health care system aren't expected to answer call-lights, take patent's trays, empty trays, pass medications, take vital signs, answer phones, call referrals, enter orders into computer system, clean their own equipment, file repair reports, make beds, move beds, order patent's meals, draw labs, draw blood, communicate with pharmacy, IT, management, CNA's, family members, case managers, cafeteria staff, PPS coordinators, doctors, nurse practitioners, PA's, patients, maintenance, housekeeping, central supply, linen services, etc.   Nurse's are expected to do all that, plus do extensive documentation and assess, plan, coordinate and carryout a plan of care for their patients as well as educate their patients and the families all in a 12 hour shift.

If the system is going to push nursing to be seen as the profession it is, as equals among health care professionals, the system has to stop treating nurses like waitresses.

The truth is nursing is a service-oriented profession.  Good nurse's will always do the "dirty work"of lowering themselves to help someone else. That is not beneath the profession of nursing.  But the pressure to do more tasks in a 12 hour period as well as the pressure to be seen as a professional by getting a higher degree are pressing hard on nurses so that the ones who do get higher degrees are moving away from bedside nursing beyond their first year as nurses.

The work of a nurse historically is honorable, no matter what society thought of them.  Whether doctor's respected nurse's or bullied them, nurses have been advocates of health and people in need of health care for centuries. The work of practical nursing does not require a bachelor's degree. And that does not mean nursing is a job vs. a profession.  But nurses do have a unique way of approaching health care that is distinct from doctors.  Doctors treat disease.  Nurses approach people wholistically  for their health and well being. Nurses should be seen as health care professionals. And I'm glad to honor the profession of nursing with a fitting degree.  I just wish the system would honor the profession of nursing not just with pressure to attain a higher degree, but with a role in health care (I'm especially thinking of acute health care, a.k.a. the hospital) that honors the profession.

At work today I parked a patient with severe brain injury next to me at the nurse's station for his safety and my convenience.  I had about four hours of charting to do and he couldn't communicate or control his body safely with attached tubes and lines.   As I assessed his needs through facial expressions, the way he held a pencil and the tears welling up in his eyes while he squeezed my arm and pointed to the coffee cup he couldn't drink out of, I decided he was communicating his despair.  I put my hand on his back and gently scratched while assuring him he was in a good place and we were going to do all we could to help him get better.   He arched his back and made an expression of relief, enjoying the back rub. A lot of problems get solved with a back rub (and a cup of coffee if the patient can have it).  It doesn't take a BSN to make an aphasic man feel comforted.  But it does take the kind of compassion that rubs a back to make a professional nurse.

a fly by the seat of my pants post on preparation

I was listening to a podcast by HopeWriters today.  They were talking about having a set aside writing day.  It's ridiculous that I was so scandalized by the idea, but yeah, a writing day.  I would like that.  No, I would love that!  Seriously an entire day to write.  That would be better than a pedicure or manicure for me.

But then they got to talking about the reality that you need to plan and prepare for that day... it's not going to be magically awarded to you by your fairy God mother.  Yep.  That's the truth of anything I want to accomplish.  I have to plan and prepare.

I'm gonna do it.  I'm gonna plan a writing day.  But thinking about that got me thinking about how true the need to plan and prepare is for anything in life that you really want to do.  Do you want to be more fit?  Plan and prepare.  Do you want to have more time alone with your spouse?  Plan and prepare.  Do you want to start eating healthier?  Plan and prepare.  Do you want to further your education?  Plan and... well, you get the idea.

My first assignments this week for my first week of the online RN to BSN program at Grand Canyon University involved writing out my greatest fears in furthering my education.  When I thought about it (other than Algebra), my greatest fear is being overwhelmed.  And that fear really involves my greatest weakness: time management. I don't really know if it's time management.  It's distractibility.  Or procrastination.  Or poor planning.  Or saying yes to too many requests.  Or trying to do too much in one day.  Whatever all that is called, it creates anxiety in me.  And the only thing that keeps the anxiety tame is planning and preparing.  I can't control the unexpected in a day or week.  And I think I function pretty well in a flying by the seat of my pants mode.  But although I can function like that, and go wherever the day takes me, if I haven't planned and prepared for I want to achieve in a day the anxiety builds and builds and builds.

For me, planning and preparing to face my fear of being overwhelmed involves lists, calendars, alarms, check off boxes, notes to self, etc.  Even still the reality of life is, lists and calendars and alarms are good things, but they won't guarantee that what I've planned will happen.  This is where resting in the sovereignty of God comes in for me.

I don't believe you should throw the baby of planning and preparing out with the bathwater of trusting in the sovereignty of God.  In fact, planning and preparing and then committing those plans and preparations to the Lord creates a humble stance of readiness to face whatever may come without being overwhelmed by the anxieties that come with unpreparedness and lack of planning.

This is true of the relationships I care about so much.  I'm 24 years in to a very trying marriage.  Ours are the trials that I'm sure many face.  In recent months my husband and I have taken a shoulder to shoulder stance with a mutual goal of being old and still married.  Granted, that shoulder to shoulder stance feels unequal at times, but the agreement of the goal were aiming for helps tremendously. Reaching that goal is requiring us to not hope that spontaneity will have us still married when our heads are covered in silver strands.  We're realizing how intentional we both need to be on a day to day basis to plan and prepare to strengthen our bond.

Whether its the joy of writing, or facing the fears that come with going back to school as a middle-aged adult, or healing and strengthening a marriage, or raising sons to be men; God has not designed the life of faith in Christ to be like having a fairy God-Mother grant you magical wishes.  His ways are good, and practical and miraculous.  Like a seed, planted in the ground, dying to bring about new life.  Like a patient farmer planting and watering and waiting for God to make it grow.  Like a mom and wife planning and preparing to win a husband and raise men for God and get a higher degree and have a writing day.

 Go to the ant, O sluggard;

consider her ways, and be wise.

 Without having any chief,

officer, or ruler,

 she prepares her bread in summer

and gathers her food in harvest.

-proverbs 6:6-8 

post anesthesia thoughts

(has nothing to do with the post, just a pretty pic i took a long time ago)

I'm not going to over think this post too much.  I had minor surgery today and am still feeling drunk on leftover anesthesia/fentanyl/percocet.  Consider yourself and the three other people reading this warned.

In the past few weeks I've been listening to podcasts from writers, reading articles about blogging and freelance writing, etc.  In one of those I was admonished to write something daily.  Be it a blog post, a journal entry, a poem... something.  Because writers don't just think about writing, they write.  I think my pastor said or wrote that once too.  It struck me then, and when I read this lady's article.  I am a writer.  Not a known writer.  Not the best writer.  But I enjoy writing and I just process life better when I'm writing.  But when I set out to write something, especially publicly, I sometimes step in the quicksand of self-analyzing and get stuck there.  And then I don't write anything.  And that sucks.  

So, I took that lady's advice and decided to write something daily.  And the next day my MacBook's hard-drive failed.  My 13 year old black Lab Bailey decided jump onto the chair where I was sitting on the back patio (something she has never done) sending Mrs. Mac descending to the concrete.  I believe she lasted 48 hours after that and died (the Mac, not Bailey).  Soooo, my writing daily challenge has been mostly limited to journaling.  

I worked consecutively this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the acute rehab unit where I practice one of the least-glamorous forms of nursing and often found myself thinking about the importance of doing the least-glamorous as a Christian.  But that's another blog post. Those past three days I wrote notes on paper about my patients and nothing more.  

Today I returned to the same hospital as a patient.  That's a good thing to do as nurse.  I had a minor being-a-girl related surgery that will hopefully help being a pre-menopausal girl with girl-problems be less problematic in the coming years. Such a surgical procedure is neither something one wants to talk about nor read about so I'll spare you.  But the experience of being a nurse on the other side is worth writing and reading about. 

I dont' tell nurses caring for me that I'm a nurse until I feel like they feel comfortable with me and I with them, or until they ask me what I do for a living.  That being said, I was really glad 7 different people asked me my name, date of birth and what procedure I was having today.  I know as a nurse this is a monotonous part of our job, constantly asking questions our patients often get tired of answering, but its reassuring as a nurse to know the people about to put me into a drug-induced coma and cut on my flesh are repetitively asking for the same information ensuring I'm not going to wake up without a leg or something.

While waiting for the doctor to come talk with me before the procedure, my husband and I had a very interesting conversation about Christian theology, homosexuality and forming personal relationships with people who don't share your worldview.  We don't share the same view on the first two of those three, but we agree that talking and listening with people who don't see life the way you do is a good thing for both parties and the community.  

The longer I stay married to a man who doesn't see life the way I do, the more I see how amazing Christ is... he is the great unifier of the most diverse people.  He makes a new person.  And he makes a person new.  "And such were some of you..."  The goal may be to win a person to Christ, but it's never to win an argument about Christ.  Required: humility, faithfulness and love.  May he bless me with those three treasures.  Oh to be made new!  And the wonder that he is making me new.  "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it." 

Sunday Thoughts

I want to be a better writer.   I've decided to challenge myself to a series of writing prompts, which I plan to post here.

Writing for me is a way to digest life.  Reading what others have written is like going out to dinner.  Journaling is like making my own meal.  Writing publicly on a blog is like having everyone over for dinner.  I want to have my own food truck/catering biz- freelance?  And maybe even my own little hole in the wall restaurant- book?  If I am going to reach those goals I need to sharpen my culinary, uh-hem, writing skills.  No more margarine.  Time for real butter.   Maybe the challenge of writing prompts will help me refine my menu.

Today at Valley Life Church Surprise, the guy who leads the team that helps people get connected at the church, Michael, preached about the second commandment from Exodus 20. 

It always hits me when I'm at church how strange we are.  We Christians.  I mean what we do on any given Sunday in most Christian church gatherings.  We sit and listen to someone proclaim truths gleaned out of reading a book that is thousands of years old.  Our souls sing... hence for many raised hands, eyes closed, tears flow.  We sing songs about God's sovereignty and power and grace and love and we sing amazed.  We eat bread and drink juice and remember Christ's sacrifice.  We confess our sins and weep over them and rejoice at forgiveness and the help we find in the scriptures and each other.   I mean, I don't know first hand what happens in gatherings of Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists, but from what I read and hear, these religious gatherings are more like corporate prayers. Memorized prayers and chants.  But not adoration in singing and proclamation of God's self-sacrificing, heart-changing love.  And for the irr-religious, its even more weird what we do.  A morning spent singing songs of praise to the unseen God for an act done in history 2000 plus years ago that has changed the course of life for a millions of people from the inside out, causing them to no longer live for themselves but for the One who died for them?  Why?  Why not just clean the garage.  Or binge on Netflix.  Or work on your golf game.  Why do all that stuff?

Listening today to the comparison between the God of Israel and the multiple gods of the peoples Israel lived amongst (and got entangled with) I realized thousands of years may have passed, but the God of the Bible and his people still stand out in a world full of idols as different.  And we still get entangled in idol worship.  John's closing sentence at the end of 1 John is a relevant and needed message that we shouldn't pass so easily over:  Little children, keep yourselves from idols.  

The God of the Bible wants all of me.  My heart.  My affections.  My love.  He has given himself to me in covenant love.  No easy access idol that makes me feel good about myself for a little while should ever get between God and I.  

I start my online Introductory Algebra class on Tuesday.  I have no idea how this will work, but I am anticipating lots of hair pulling and frustrated Facebook posts.  Hopefully at the end of summer I can test into the math I need to get into the BSN program.  

Math is my nemesis. 

Time-warp wrap up

I feel like it's going to be Thanksgiving and Christmas and 2017 in rapid succession. It really feels to me like since I drove the kids home from California this summer, we've been in a fast-forward time warp.

Friday and Saturday were the culmination and fruition of 2+ months of soap-making and 2+ weeks of marketing, packaging, printing and prepping. The Front Porch Pickins Vintage and Handmade Market at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale hosting hundreds of vendors, including my little Goats Make Soap Co. booth, was from 9-7 on Friday and 9-4 on Saturday. Thursday was about 8 hours of unloading and setup and Saturday after 4pm was about 4 hours of packing up and loading. 

In total, weeks of hours was put into this event and it paid off.  I learned some things, had great interactions with new customers, was blessed with visits from friends and made triple in sales what I was hoping for.  I think I'll do it again in February and won't be nearly as stressed about it before hand now that I know what to expect.

My dear neighbor, Laura, volunteered to help me through the whole process in exchange for keeping her in soap. Deal! And I'm sure I got the better end of that bargain, because I would not have been standing upright on the floor of the Cardinals stadium setting up a booth on Thursday if it wasn't for her! I see a good friendship developing there. Thank you Lord!

In the weeks leading up to this event I sold my last two milking does and went to part time (24 hours a week) at work. I was also offered an opportunity to apply for a wound nurse position at my hospital (which I will be applying for tomorrow), which is a half-time position (20 hrs a week). I also applied to ASU's RN to BSN online program which I will be following up on tomorrow to find out the next step.

The Friday before last my mother in law found out she has stage 3 duodenal cancer, which is so rare the doctors are treating it as small bowel cancer because they really don't know how to treat it. This came as a big surprise. She starts chemotherapy next week and I will be flying out to stay with her for a couple days the week of Thanksgiving.

I'm tired and ready to call it a day after a nail-biting baseball tournament day with Connor and coffee with dear friends this evening.

I am finding that there are no A+B=C explanations for why God does what he does. At least those kinds of linear, clear, neat explanations don't satisfy me. But a look at the cross of Christ does. A look up at an all-powerful, sovereign, good and holy God gets my eyes off why and on what. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to learn? And even more that that, it takes the questions off the table, at least for awhile, and causes me just forget myself and be in awe of one greater than me and my circumstances. To get lost for a moment in the wonder of God and his plan for the universe and little speck of dust me... to think about the fact that I am his creature, he made me, in his image, and for his glory... The whys and the whats fall off the radar and I can look back down at where I'm at in life and have a sense of peace that says, "All will be well because I am His and He is mine."

Quieted,

Sheila

This is just to decompress

Today was a very full day. And seeing that it's 9:49pm and I work tomorrow this is going to be a very succinct post. Mostly just a way to get out of my head all that's bouncing around. Read at your own risk.

I had the past four days off.  Yesterday I attended a vendor meeting for the upcoming Front Porch Pickins Vintage & Handmade Market.  The market will be November 4th and 5th at the University of Phoenix stadium where the Arizona Cardinals play.  An understatement would be the place is huge.  Another understatement would be:  I'm feeling a bit nervous.  Beginning Wednesday, this market is being advertised on HGTV, DIY Network, The History Channel, Fox AZ, Channel 12 AZ...   I just get the feeling I'm going to get a lot more customers than I usually have at a booth I've run.  I'm the third booth people will see when entering the market.  Gulp.

Lots to do because of the above, but thanks to a friend and neighbor, I'll have help!  She's done many trade shows before and knows what to expect.  She's officially Goats Make Soap Co.'s administrative assistant/ event planner/ keep the soap maker from passing out lady.

Despite this big venue coming in 2 weeks (breathe Sheila, breathe) I am trying to not let the million things I need to do keep me from my family.  This week is fall break and both the boys have been home all week.  Today was a day scheduled to deliver to purchased does to their new owner in the Williams, AZ area.  I figured we'd make a day out of it so after dropping off the goats at their new residence, we drove to Bearizona!  It was soon worth it!  We saw bears, mountain goats, burrows, Mexican wolves and even a huge Bison giving birth!

We got home 30 minutes before swim practice, so it was basically a potty break/change into your swim clothes stop.  Not really arriving home.

At 7:30 this evening when we got home officially, after swim practice, I made four batches of soap.

I have 560 + bars of soap for this venue.  I hope it's enough.

Time to hit the hay.  Tomorrow I'm a R.N.

 Quieted,

Sheila

Lessons from a Monday

I worked a 12 hour shift today.  It was a good day.  Less stressful than the day I wrote about here, but still busy.  A good busy.  Not a I-have-no-idea-what-happened-in-the-past-12-hours busy.  We had a couple of admissions at the end of the shift which made for a very busy end of shift. 4 to 7 PM went by in 5 seconds flat and I accomplished about 20 things in that period of time in an ever-changing order of importance.

After work I drove to my son's club baseball tryouts and listened to the 11 year old version and 44 year old version of The Wallet and Tablet That Was Stolen From the Truck story.  I watched the 13 year old make a couple of great hits (or crush the ball as he would put it) and then drove the 11 year old home so he could be in bed before 10:30.

While I was driving home some small epiphanies were dawning on me:

1. It's so helpful to try and understand another person's point of view.  Trying to explain to a frustrated nursing assistant why I could understand her frustration with patient so-and-so but if she could just try to put herself in patient so-and-so's shoes she might be less frustrated, I realized what a gift it is to be able to be a nurse. A nurse gets patients of all kinds.  Patients are people.  They had moms and dads, whether they knew them or not.  They may or may not have kids.  They had jobs and previous battles with illness.  They may have estranged children and unconventional living circumstances.  They probably have a story behind their rudeness, or impulsivity, or confusion, or fear, or flat affect or foul smell.  Taking the time to listen to people (patients) takes time.  Time away from charting and tasks on the task list.  And that's ok.  Taking time to listen makes a difference in people's lives and makes us better people.  Nurses get to do that in a way most of us don't.  When the cashier is rude at the checkout we don't really have time to ask them about where they're from or if they have kids or why they are where they are.  But nurses do.  In fact, admitting a patient to the hospital can be a great exercise in listening and trying to understand another person.  It's a special opportunity.
2. One should never leave a wallet full of cash ($430 to be exact) and an electronic tablet sitting in an unlocked car at a high school while one drops one's child off at baseball practice.  This a mouth-full of humble pie for one who is a law-enforcement officer.
3. The Christian Church should be like a good nurse:  She seeks the wellness of those who come to her even if it seems to hurt them at times.  She does not condemn the broken ones who come to her for being broken.  She gives of herself to minister to them the orders of the Great Physician for their wholeness.  
4. My thoughts after reading 1 Peter- If you can't love and serve the foul-mouthed, arrogant, perverse, flippant, reckless cranks and jesters around you while refraining from the foulness, arrogance, perverseness, flippancy, complaining and levity they slander you for not joining them in, you haven't really begun to taste Christ in you.  Christ in you is what it means to be a Christian.  And Christ in you will compel you to lay down your life to love and serve others with grace and truth whether they malign you or praise you.  Whether they cherish you or take advantage of you.  Whether they treat you with respect or utterly disregard you. Because you want them to join you in the joy of being brought to God.   I've barely begun to taste and I want more.  It's crazy.

All on a Monday.

"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God..." 1 Peter 3:18

Quieted,

Sheila

while my kids peruse the game section of the bookstore...

I'm sitting in Barnes and Noble watching a huge thunderstorm dump a ton of rain outside. I sort of wish I had stayed home and sat on my patio now.  If there's any redeeming factor to the unbearably hot summers in the Phoenix valley it's the summer monsoon storms.  I'm captivated by the power in the thunder and lightening and wind and dumping of massive amounts of water in minutes.

It's my third day off from working a long stretch at the hospital.  I made use of the first two days with household chores, errands and grocery shopping.  Today was a Goats Make Soap Co. day.  I finished a custom order of wedding party favors and made four batches of our top seller- Lavender Fields Forever, and a 5 pound batch of our Original soap.

Parenthesis: I think I'm sitting next to an invisible skunk or someone in this store has beat my 13 year old son in the stinky feet department cause there's no person within 20 feet of my position at this table at B&N and I'm dying here!  I may have to make this a short post.  Yuck.

Tomorrow I get to go to church.  I'm like Bono when it comes to church... I still haven't found what I'm looking for,  but I've decided I need to commit myself to loving a bunch of imperfect people in Jesus' name whether they do church the way I think is best or not.  But I do enjoy the time of sanctuary where I can sing and direct my affections and longings toward my God in harmony with the dozens of other broken people like me in the same room.

Starting in September my friend and neighbor are going to begin going to BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) on Tuesdays.  I was involved in a BSF for a couple years before I had children.  It was key in developing my Bible literacy.  I grew spiritually so much during that time.  Feeding on God's word really makes a huge difference!   It's been a dry year or so for me without a church and not in the Word as consistently as I need to be.  I'm really looking forward to just soaking my mind in Bible.

I've decided to go the custom order route with the soap biz.  Sometime tomorrow I'll start working on putting out an email blast and re-ordering the website to reflect the coming changes.  I'll finish the year with the current online store and planned soap shows, but starting in 2017 Goats Make Soap Co. with be custom, handmade, locally sourced goats milk soaps and lotions with options for custom orders and some in stock soaps online.  We will be doing a couple soap shows next year but not a weekly farmers market.

During a conference at work the other day I learned of Circle The City.  I'm very interested.  As soon as I go to part time I plan to investigate more.

I'm reading The Insanity of God right now.  Desiring to "go" as Jesus commanded to make disciples of all nations sounds glorious until your in the face to face horror of humanity's evils and no progress seems to be being made.  Going can mean staying too.  Staying in the inglorious marriage and head to head battles with kids.  Praying for that difficult-to-work-with person and making a point to serve them in some way.  There is a definite draw to leaving the mundane in exchange for the adventure of reaching the unknown and unreached.  But it's not glorious.  Any service can be turned upside down and inside out by pride and illusions of grandeur.  But really following Jesus because you love Him and you want to go where He leads and do what He says is an adventure with sure glory in the end and sure trouble along the way.  Knowing my Redeemer lives and with my eyes I shall see him and when I see him I'll be made like him... free from this sin-philic body.  I long.  He's worth it all.

Quieted,

Sheila

You Liberals think that goats are just sheep from broken homes. - Malcom Bradbury

I just threw that title in cause it's a crazy presidential election season, but I should have titled this post: We're giving up the goats.

Yep, you read correctly.  Our family's 3 plus year adventure with dairy goats is coming to an end.

If only had once sentence to explain why I'm doing this it would be this:

I believe God is leading me to use my time, resources and skills as a nurse to serve others in His name more.

*****I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY!  The above was the beginning of a long, thought-out post about why I've decided to give up the dairy goats in pursuit of more time available for serving God with my life as a nurse... or however He leads.  But, the Mac locked up and I had to force quite and that is all that's left!  I guess I don't need to post a long thought out post.  Deep sigh.

I guess I'll just post pics from our years with the goats and say, I'll miss the cheese and yogurt and milk.  I'll miss the kidding seasons and those floppy-eared personalities.  But I'm looking forward to laying aside the good to pursue the best in what God would lead me to do right now.

FYI:   For my soap customers and friends: I'll still be making soap.  Goats Make Soap Co. will have a new direction and operate a bit differently, but we'll still be making our amazing soaps.

“If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to him and ask him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”

- Elisabeth Elliot 

“The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” - G.K. Chesterton

I'm tired and lots on my mind so I'm just gonna spill out a list of facts from the top of my head:

1. I drove approximately 5,000 miles in July.  Most of that in the first and last week of the month. 1,220 of it in the last 48 hours.
2. I think I'm legitimately car-sick.  Or driving-sick.  Or sick of driving.  I don't really want to move faster than a walking pace for the next 24 hours.
3. My 13 year old changed this month.  When I left him the first week of July with my sister and brother in law and nephews he was noticeably less mature than he is this week when I picked him up and drove him home.  He extended an open hand to his brother after offending him in a way that typically would have led to a full-fledged sibling argument and said, "Come on Ryland. Forgive me?  I've changed a lot this month.  I don't want to do this."  I had to deliberately act like I wasn't paying attention and keep my mouth from dropping open.  Lots of, "Yes mom."  And, "Ok mom."  And "Thank you mom."       Thank you Father!!
4. Sierra Bible Camp rocks!!  I will be sending my boys there every summer Lord willing. 
5. Sierra Bible Camp rocks!!!  I am planning and praying about serving as a cabin counselor there next year.
6. God is moving in the Anderson Church of Christ.  It's not the Church of Christ I grew up in.  Praise God!
7. My sister is a living testimony of the God who changes men's hearts.  She's full of joy, humility and love.  It's contagious and I love her!
8. Divorce really messes things up.  I hate it!  I'm thankful for the redemption that comes with knowing Christ but I hate the wake of destruction divorce leaves for generations.
9. If you need a place to stop and eat on the I-10 in Indio, California stop at the Kids Business or the TKB Deli and Bakery.  It's the bomb!!  My friend Mary suggested it and we stopped there on the way home.  Worth the stop.  You won't regret it.
10. If you program your GPS for Sierra Bible Camp you'll end up in the woods in the mountains in Nor Cal.  Don't do it.  
11. It's really hard to be far from family.  
12. My mother-in-law has been in the hospital for 20 something days. She's very ill.  I only got to spend a little time with her while I was there and my husband will be going to see her soon. Please pray for her.
13. School starts the day after tomorrow.  Last year of middle school for Connor.  
14. Some major lifestyle changes are on the cue for the Dougal family.  Coming soon.

I'm beyond tired.  God is good.  That is all.

Quieted,

Sheila

Mixed feelings on 42.

As of today I'm 42.  

Today is a mixed bag of emotions. The day started at 5:30 AM, which is an hour and a half sleep-in compared to the 4 AM wake up call on workdays.  The baby goats are being separated from their mom's at night to begin the weaning process, so when I walk the acre from our back door, under the stars, to the corral where they're at, I'm greeted by 7 goat kids screaming, "MAAAAA!!"

I tiredly fed the baby girl (The 6 boys we have left I stopped bottle feeding in the morning.  They seem to be getting what they need from their mom's and will be weaned completely from milk by 2 months of age.) and then thought I'd sneak back into the house and sleep more until 7:30 and then come back and milk the momma goats, but I decided to just get the milking chores done and then nap after.  The nap finally came at 12:30 after morning chores and a guy responding to our Craigslist ad for free mulch came to pick up a load... and I did some reading.

James put the boys to work yesterday and today for their first 2 days of summer break.  Yesterday he had them purge every closet, cabinet and drawer in the entire house.  Today he had them cleaning the back patio, garage and barn.   They did good.  I think they're happier when they do hard work.  

I, on the other hand, refrained from all chores and soap making today.  I spent some time reading and thinking and praying about dear friends, broken relationships and people I care about with major things going on in their lives.  I also decided to pull out the Jamberry gel nail kit I bought like 6 months ago and actually paint my nails.  It put the nail in the coffin for me.  I am not a nail person!  I just don't want to spend an hour of my life painting my fingernails.  They do feel nice, but I feel a little like a cat feels when you put scotch tape on his paws.

The day started getting heavy when I got news that my grandpa Don passed away this morning.  Grandpa Don has been married to my grandma Oleta since I was about 13.  I was not close to him but I know he had a servant's heart... always helping and serving my grandma and her kids and grandkids.  For the last few years he's had to live in a memory care facility due to his worsening Alzheimer's disease.  It's been hard for my grandma Oleta not having him at home as she's been struggling with a lung cancer diagnosis and her own health issues.  I know my grandma is grieving the loss of her brother this week too.  My heart is heavy for her.  I wish I lived closer!

Grief is a hard thing.  You don't have to experience a physical death to experience grief.   Divorce and betrayal can create the worst kind of grief...  for more than just the couple and their immediate family.   I tried to face that grief with vulnerability and love today in a very small way.  Someone asked me why not just ignore it.  I can't.  Love can't.  Forgiveness can't.  Ignoring it is just letting it fester deep inside.

Tomorrow I'll start at 4 am and end at 9 pm with breakfast, a 12 hour shift at the hospital and a quick bite to eat in between.  Repeat twice.  Then I'll be home for three days to plan the summer events with the boys, make soap and lotion orders, ship soap, hopefully sell some more bucklings, attend a Linear Appraisal from the ADGA and hopefully do a trip to the library.

I can easily fall into the trap of living under the tyranny of the urgent.  I don't want to though.  Taking a day like today to rest from the normal business is a good way for me to look the Urgency Tyrant in the face and say, "God's in charge.  Not you."  I think that's in the Bible somewhere.  :)

Every year that passes I am becoming more and more in agreement with the heart cry in the prayer, "So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom!"

Quieted, 

Sheila

Solving the world's problem's on the treadmill

I always think out these theological arguments when I jog.  It usually starts with seeing buff men and women out there on the gym floor pumping iron while I run like an uncoordinated giraffe on the treadmill.

When I look out on a crowd of people, especially people working hard to achieve some level of physical fitness or strength, I think about the fact that we are made in the image of God.   I think about what C.S. Lewis said, "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare."   And what the Psalmist wrote, "I said, 'You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.'" (Psalm 82:6-7).

It's part of what I believe that shapes how I view and interact with people.  I tremble sometimes when I look around and think about the souls all around me.  And when I walk a bent over 90 plus year old woman to the bathroom at work I think about the fact that she was once 16 and 21 and 42 and has a whole story.  She's a creature of God!  She's an immortal soul created in the image of God for the purpose of resonating his wonder through her life.  Even as she hobbles to the bathroom.  

 I look at all those bodies trying really hard to get bigger and be stronger and look sexier and I think,  "We're all gods!".  We've been given so much power and dominion and bear the image of God.  We are not God, yet we act like gods all the time.  Deciding what's right and wrong.  Making rules and enforcing them.  Declaring what's just and unjust.  Creating amazing works of art, science, structure and food. We champion causes and teach our children what we believe they should and shouldn't do.  And yet we deny that there is a God and declare that we are merely random results of time and matter.  We are gods declaring there is no God.  We are broken, confused, evil gods that, at times (by the common grace of God), do good.

We don't want there to be a God because the want to be the gods we deny that we are.

I heard a story on the radio of a woman who was angrily calling into a debate where she declared that the whole agenda of the debate was to deny her the right, as a woman, to do with what she willed the life of the baby growing inside her.  She carried on in her rant against the debaters questioning what kind of a God would take away the innocent lives of people in an earthquake or natural disaster.  And one debater asked the lady if she would answer him this one thing:  How can you declare any notion of a God who would take a life in a natural disaster an evil God while at the same time declaring your right to take the life of the child growing inside you as right and just?

We are insane gods.  We declare what's wrong is right and what's right is wrong.  We claim for ourselves the right to the power we declare would be wrong for a perfect, loving, holy, pure God to have.

I don't understand a lot of things about God.  I don't see why.  But I know this: I am not able to see or understand and therefore I have no right to claim I know better.  I would much rather come under the judgement and mercy of a perfect God than to align myself with the twisted reasoning and declarations of an imperfect human being.

Thinking,

Sheila

another day in the books

We had farm visitors today!  A soap customer and a nurse I used to work with came with their sweet kiddos to check out the baby goats and pick some soap.  Of course, the baby kitties were a hit too.  Even the chickens drew their attention.

I enjoy sharing the pleasure of having a little farm with others.  I never would have thought I'd get to do that!

Today was day 1 of 4 off work.  I worked three days in a row and that's enough to tucker a girl out!

Today was a rest and visit day.  Tomorrow is a Goats Make Soap Co. business day and another disbudding day.  We have a set of twin bucklings that need to be disbudded.  I'm not looking forward to it at all, but it has to be done.

Goats Make Soap Co. may soon have soap on the shelf of a store in Madrid, Spain!  We received a request from a merchant in Madrid who would like to stock our soaps in their little store.  So exciting!

Ryland had band practice this evening and Connor baseball.  Saturday and Sunday will be a tournament weekend for Connor in Gilbert.  And then another 12 hour shift at the hospital for me.  Mother's Day is coming, then Nurse's week, then another doe is due to kid, and then school is out for summer!

The days fill up and go by so fast.  When I get a chance to stop and survey, a week or two has passed and before I know it it's a new season and I have two sons fast becoming men entering their 7th and 8th grade years.

Sigh.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!  - Psalm 90:12-17

Quieted,

Sheila

Sundays just aren't the same

It's really beautiful out tonight.

I broke the normal Sunday night routine of dishes, laundry and dispatching children to the shower to get ready for work and school on Monday to come sit out on the patio and think, which means write, for a bit.

I'm really bummed about how Sunday's have turned out for me and my family.

This summer it will have been 2 years (I think) since my church peacefully parted ways. Our small number of families set out to find a new church family and our pastor followed the call on his life to teach... all over the world. Between baseball tournaments for Connor and my work schedule, I have been at church maybe 2 Sunday's a month at most. When I do go, it's not always at the same place. We just haven't settled anywhere.

 I want to find a church with a Saturday or midweek worship so that if baseball or my work schedule don't allow us to go on Sunday we still have a chance to meet. This weekend was one of those weekends when neither Saturday nor Sunday would have worked for church since Connor had a tournament that extended into the evening Saturday and took up the morning on Sunday. And it's nearly unheard of to have a Sunday evening service anymore. I miss that. Growing up we were at church Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night. Not that that makes you special or a better person, but it's just so refreshing to pause from the business of daily life to have dedicated times (multiple times, not 1 hour on Sunday morning) when you can go hear the preaching of God's word and join with others in worship. I miss it. A lot.

We have fun baby goats running and jumping around out there in the goat yard. Six in total. Five are bucklings (male goats). And a lone baby girl (doeling). We'll keep the doeling. All the bucklings will be wethered (castrated) and sold. I wanted to try raising some of the boys for meat, but I'm having a really hard time thinking about actually carrying that plan out. And my macho-man husband isn't helping. When I told him my idea about raising them until 8 months of age and then having them butchered, he protested. He can't handle the idea of eating something he watched grow in our backyard. That's the whole point actually... to know where your food comes from and that it was raised in an ethical and healthy way. But it is hard. I think I could go through with it, as long as I don't have to do the killing (and I won't), but I'm still undecided. I'll probably put them up for sale, knowing they'll be somebody's barbecue, and if the don't sell, I'll destine them for the freezer in 8 months.  I'll probably have to schedule that freezer day on a day when my husband's at work... he'll have no idea when dinner's served.

Goats Make Soap Co. had our last booth at the Momma's Organic Farmer's Market at Parkwest in Peoria yesterday.  We were invited to be regular's next year.  I don't know what we're going to do over the summer.  We've developed a regular customer base, and for now we are able (just barely) to keep up with the demand for our soaps and lotions.  Time is the issue.  Working full-time, raising sons, married life, goat farming... our days are full. We're discussing making a formal business plan.  We're also planning to approach Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Tractor Supply and Ace Hardware about become a vendor so that our soaps will be stocked in their stores... at least in Arizona.  That's a HUGE deal.  Only because I have no idea how it works and I'm confident it'll require equipment to make much larger batches of soap and packaging that's suitable for store shelves.  We'll make the plans.  The Lord will direct the steps.

Connor has taken his first paying job as a farm-hand for a neighbor to do evening farm chores once a week.  She has twice as many goats as we do and a much more extensive (and beautiful) homestead going on.  I'm really proud of him.  The foundation is starting to get a frame.  The ditch I started digging when he was a baby is starting to take form.  I've been raising a man, not a boy these 13 years.  I pray with even more desperation and fervency for the next 13.  Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain.

Quieted,

Sheila

Sunday thoughts and an open letter

It always feels good to sleep in. For me, 6:30 is sleeping in. So when I woke up at 7:15 this morning I felt like I'd slept my life away!  But boy did it feel good.  

The girls were ready for me when I got out to the milking area this morning.  All their calls said, "Where have you been?!"

I love the quiet mornings filling feeders, collecting eggs, and the tinny sound of hot, fresh milk hitting the empty stainless steel bucket.  And now that it's cold outside in the morning it's just so refreshing and quiet and peaceful.

I haven't been able to be at church for several weeks now.  Between having to work on Sundays (more than I'd like) and Connor's baseball tournament schedule I haven't been able to make it.  But in the hit and miss months I think we've settled on a church family.  The Refuge meets at a community center near 107th avenue and Camelback.  Good friends of ours recently started meeting there and invited us.  There is no perfect church.  The requirements are there.  The abundance of fluff, smoke and mirrors is not.  That's about as close to perfect as it gets for me.  We've been at a few great churches in the weeks I've been looking.  There are some great Bible teaching, gospel preaching, Christ-centered, worshipful churches out there.  Some of them I'd actually prefer to settle down at, but they're far away and my kids haven't made a connection with anyone.  At the Refuge my middle school boys know a fellow middle school aged boy already and the youth group meets on a Wednesday night which allows for the boys to still get together with their peers and learn about God together.  I like that.  I want that for them.

I took the boys to the Arizona Science Center after church.  We've been before but it seemed to be more of hit this year than when we went last.  Ryland was enamored with the 3D printer.  Connor was fascinated with the water works and gears.  Tells me something about them.

This morning I read a post on Facebook that shook me.  The person posted their feelings about the latest shooting in Colorado at a Planned Parenthood.  She aligned the man who did the shooting with right-winged conservative Christians and seemed to think this deranged man who killed three people was a representative of a Christian who is anti-abortion.

My mind went into high gear.  In my head I wrote her a whole letter.  I didn't post it.  I don't know if I should have or not.  I don't want to come across as a knee-jerk reaction Christian who rants about all the things they're "against".  I want my life to this woman to say:  She's a Christian.  And I know because of the way she treats people.

She may never read this, and maybe, if God gives me the grace and the courage and if it's even necessary, maybe she and I could talk about it.  But just to get it off my chest here's an open letter to the Facebook world:

Dear Facebook friend, 

I read your post and had a flood of thoughts.   

I wanted you to know that this man in Colorado Springs is not representative of a true Christian.   

I'm a Christian woman who opposes abortion and knows nothing about the hashtag #alllivesmatter.  But I do believe all lives matter.  And I know this man was not a Christian no matter what he said.  Nor was he for life, no matter what he said.  A true Christian lays down their life for others.  They don't take others lives to achieve some kind of moral state they think there should be.   

To me, both this man and the men and women who perform abortions, commit appalling acts of horror because they take life from a person according to their own judgements of what is right and wrong.   

What is right and wrong?  Who gets to decide?  The man with the gun on a snowy morning at a Colorado Planned Parenthood?  Or the practitioner in an exam room with a young woman on the table and the lethal saline about to be injected into her womb to stop the beating heart of her unborn human baby?   

I wonder what the logic is behind defending either one of those people's actions?   

I guess it comes down to what you believe.   

If you believe we're all highly evolving species of living matter randomly generated by time and chance, then why is it wrong for any Homo Sapien to take the life of another Homo Sapien?   

No one writes CNN headline stories and is grieved or appalled, demanding justice in the pride of lions when one lion kills another.  And it's not just because we're more highly evolved than the lion.  We demand justice and are grieved when people are murdered because we know right from wrong.  We know there is such a thing as evil.  And the only reason why we should know such a thing is if some kind of law higher than our own opinions governs the human race.   

I believe those precious lives taken by that man in Colorado are precious because they bear the image of God. They know right from wrong and were made to represent in their nature the wonders of the Creator who made them.  

What happened at that Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood the other day is evil.  And I grieve.    

I think one day we'll look back at the horrors of abortion in the United States like we look back at the horrors of the genocide in Auschwitz in WWII.  Because we know right from wrong.  We know evil from good.   

I believe the world will get to see what real Christians are like more and more as these days of terror, and evil and violence progress.   They aren't out to kill those who do what they don't agree with.  They are out to lay down their lives for those they don't agree with.  

With love and a heavy heart,

Sheila

Yeah, I'm sitting here playing

I have been sitting here playing around with my blog.  My abandoned blog.  Turkey is in the oven.  Our turkey is farm-raised, free-range from my neighbor across the alley. I watched her grow.  The neighbor did the dirty work and traded me 3 loaves of soap for this beauty of a turkey. 

Of course, my tried and true method of buying a frozen turkey with that automatic pop-up thermometer that takes the guess work out of when the turkey's done is out.  And it's not just the blog style or the turkey that's new this year.  I soaked the turkey in a brine this year for the first time.   I sure hope it turns out O.K. 

I've taken a break from soaping for today... although I may just make some avocado soap today... I can't help myself! Today I'm enjoying my family, rest, the farm, the cool weather, the food and meditating on the wonders of the truth that I am a daughter of God through Christ.  That's a billion universe statement.  

I'm thinking of my mom and dad and brother and sister and grandma and mother-in-law and brother-in-law and sister-in-law and nieces and nephews and their families... I'm missing them.  I'm praying for them.  I'm so thankful for them.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever! - Psalm 30:11

Happy Thanksgiving!
Sheila

The best thing you can give away

I was thinking today about a time not so long ago when I was blogging like a mad-woman.  I'd read a passage of the Bible and my mind would go into a storm of thought and inspiration and I'd have to share it.  I had to.

I remember at the time feeling like I didn't have a real "gift" or "talent" that I could use.  I'd think ridiculous thoughts like, "People paint, they write books, they make crafts, they excel in sports... and what do I do?  Write Bible-inspired blog posts?  Not exactly something you can wrap up and send as a gift."  I embraced it though and thoroughly enjoyed the joy of knowing my God more and more as I would read my Bible.  I came to love knowing that I was given a non-tangible gift of encouraging others in truth.

Then came some really hard times.  And I backed off the blog because I really didn't know what to write.  I'd read my Bible and weep, not write.  That season of overwhelming inspiration was gone.  A new season of walking through the valley of the shadow had come.  And all I could do was walk. Not talk. Not share. Not edit. Not even meditate.  All I could do was put one faith-foot in front of the other and keep walking my way through the scriptures and cling to the rocks of truth that promised me I wasn't abandoned.

That dark season has passed, and the prolific writing seems to have gone with it.  I miss it.  Not so much the writing but the hearing of truths that shook me and bubbled out of me and were constantly on my mind.  People have been so encouraging about the soap-making that I've embarked on.  I'm really glad they like it.  I like making something tangible that is a blessing to someone else.  But I look back on the days when all I could give was an encouraging word and I realize what a gift that is, not only for the recipient, but for the giver.  It really is more blessed to give than receive.  And the word fitly spoken really is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.

Nothing is more satisfying to my soul than hearing the Living God speak through the words he's preserved for millennia.  And when you can give that away... it's just the best.

My friend and pastor is leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow to give away the best gift ever!  Those folks are so blessed.

Quieted,

Sheila