Quick (and very late) update on the 5k: we raised $3,744 total for the World Water Project! Tiva Water sent me the picture posted here last Christmas showing a family who received some of the water filters that our money provided them with - incredible and powerful picture to say the least. Another (late) shoutout to everyone who helped me, supported me, donated, and came out.
Now, I want to share my pick-me-up for the week. As it is getting close (too close) to my college graduation, I am missing my dad more than usual. Today was no exception. I woke up, went to clinicals, and came home feeling exhausted and just ready to be done with nursing school. Soon after I got home, a maintenance man knocked on our door. He had come to fix one of our windows. Right away, he lifted my spirits by his smile and giggle when he asked me if I could help him figure out something on his phone. He then handed me a folded sheet of paper with a message from his devotional on it and told me he hoped it would make my day better (without even knowing that my day wasn't going well might I add). I set it aside, not thinking anything of it. Well, the window took about 45 seconds to fix, but he was at our apartment for about 45 minutes. It an easy fix which led this man to tell me numerous related stories...which led to more and more stories having nothing to do with the original topic (now you see why it took 45 minutes). He was telling me of multiple times that the Lord had clearly worked in his life, one being how he met his wife. He was from West Virginia, she was from Tennessee. He was mistakenly stationed at a base in Wyoming in August of 1968. The woman who would soon (like really soon...they got married in January) become his wife was visiting her aunt in Wyoming at the time. They both attended a church camp where they ended up meeting and falling in love. He went on to tell me more about the "lady of his dreams." Then his tone changed. On December 9th, 2012, he took the love of his life to UT Medical Center from which she would never return home again. "Jesus took her to spend Christmas with Him that year," he said.
At this point, I was at a loss for words. This conversation had gone from casual to personal before I even knew it. Wondering where the conversation was headed, I listened quietly as he continued. He told me that the doctors and nurses that took care of his wife were angels sent from God. He even bakes them brownies from time to time, a year after his wife's stay at the hospital. And nurses love brownies, let me tell ya (hint hint). There is a fiber optic angel located on the floor his wife was on with stars around the base containing the names of every nurse and doctor his family came into contact with that week.
This man had no idea that I was fed up with nursing school more than usual this morning. He had no idea that I was even in nursing school. But he made me re-realize why I wanted to become a nurse to begin with. He made me realize that I have the best profession in the world, where I have a chance to make THAT big a difference in someone's life, even when the outcomes are not favorable. After he left, I opened up the piece of paper he gave me on his arrival. And what it is affirmed that this man's visit was definitely a God moment for me:
Just think,
You're not here by chance, but by God's choosing. His hand formed you and made you the person you are. He compares you to no one else - you are one of a kind. You lack nothing that His grace can't give you. He has allowed you to be here at this time in history to fulfill His special purpose for this generation.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. - Ecclesiastes 3:1
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