constant disappointment in a fallen world.

If there is anything I have learned over the last year, it is the painful reality of disappointment.  This world was never meant to deliver me pure and everlasting joy.  Yet, along the way, I have become confused and scraped at everything I could to try and produce this for me.  It hasn’t.  I have experienced the pain of a friend struggling in her faith.  A constant sting of past ignorance and indulgence.  Anxieties about the future that have immobilized me.  Hope deferred as I’ve grown close to another.

And yet, my soul cries out with joy and fulfillment as I am reminded,

by the grace of Jesus Christ I have been granted salvation and eternal life.  I have been set free.

the ground is covered yet again.

Wow, how time flies.  I promise that I had EVERY intention of updating you with all of the yummy food I made in the fall.  I also promise that even though I didn’t update you on here, I still tried a ton of stuff and even experimented with creating my own food.  However, here I find myself in the middle of January with another semester of college underneath my belt and only one more to go.  Part of me is super excited to enter life outside of college and the other part is scared crapless.  I’ve spent this last semester with four roommates who are all working full-time jobs.  I’m not saying that they don’t all love their jobs….but they really don’t all love their jobs, at least not every day.  I feel like this is going to be the biggest adjustment for me: going from class, break, and maybe class again, to the same job every day (or maybe not if I get a job in a hospital!).

A couple of exciting things are happening in the spring in relation to Nursing.  I finished up my LAST super hard semester in the fall and from what I hear, life is pretty sweet from here until graduation.  But what I’m REALLY excited about are my internship and externship placements for this semester.  For my internship, I was placed on an OB/Labor & Deliver floor at a hospital that I just love, Abbott-Northwestern.  This  means that I get to spend six weeks with about 4-5 other students, welcoming new babies into the world!!!!  How can a person not be excited!  For my externship, which is where I am tied to one nurse and work when she works, I was placed on an Adult Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at United Hospital.  This was my top choice and I cannot express the excitement that I experienced when I found out I got it.

So, here’s to my last semester of school of my undergraduate degree.  Let’s hope I can actually stay on top of blogging every once in a while.

Domestic Goddess #1

Here is the promised update on my cooking experiments in the kitchen.  I was in Wyoming last week and my mom mentioned that she had made White Chicken Chili for a group of friends they had over a few weeks before.  Upon my return to the MN, I cooked this delicious recipe and it was just too good not to share!

White Bean Chicken Chili
1 tbsp olive oil.
1 small onion –peeled and chopped
2 medium garlic cloves – peeled and chopped
3 cans of white beans( I like Northern or Navy)
4 oz. green chilies – canned and diced
½ tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
14 ½ oz. reduced sodium chicken broth
½ pound roasted chicken breast meat –cut in ½ in. cubes  (I bought a rotisserie chicken from the store and peeled all the skin and fat off of the meat before I pulled it and placed it in the chili)
2 tbsp. lime juice
In large pot heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion & garlic. Sauté 5 minutes. Stir in the white beans, chilies, cumin, chili powder and broth. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir in the chickenand simmer 5 minutes. Stir in lime juice. Serving size 6.

Enjoy! Becoming a domestic goddess, one meal at a time.

“What sort of men will you be? Men obsessed with your own glory…or the glory of God?”

Gianna Jessen is an abortion survivor who is speaking out against the silent holocaust of abortion and declaring the glory of God.  I was moved to tears.  I hope you find this helpful.

Part 1:

Part 2:

my eternal heart transplant.

I took care of a patient yesterday that had had a heart transplant six days prior.  It was pretty sweet to think that another persons heart was doing the work to provide life for the rest of his body.  This makes me think of Jesus and he provided life for me by doing the work that I couldn’t do, on the cross.  When my soul failed and I was a drudge of sin, he took my old heart’s out of me and gave me a new heart. This heart is free of sin and united with him forever.   HE has bridged the gap that was between myself and God.  Thankful to think on this while taking care of him yesterday in the hospital.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.   And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:25-26)

my worst fears, confirmed.

There’s always a certain element of anxiety when you, as a nursing student, are about to step onto a hospital floor for your clinical.  You feel like you’re walking onto it with limited knowledge and ZERO experience.  Last year I had to go in the night before my clinical to prep on my patient and the whole time I would be thinking, “don’t die on me tomorrow…PLEASE, don’t die during my care tomorrow!”

During clinical today, my group started talking about all of the bad things that have happened to nursing students in OUR class over the last year.  Here they are:

(The first three that I’m going to list happened to one girl in her first year of nursing school.)

1.)  The very first patient that she took care of in her nursing school career had a heart attack within the first hour of her care.  Thankfully her clinical instructor was in the room with her.  But she spent the rest of the day in the corner of the room as doctor’s screamed questions at her that she had no idea the answers to.

2.)  A couple weeks later this nursing student was in the room when the doctor of her patient came in to give her her diagnosis (the patient had come in because of a clot in her leg with no expectation for any big diagnosis).  The doctor, who was not even this woman’s regular physician, gave her the diagnosis of her terminal illness, 4th stage ovarian cancer, very quickly and left without saying another word other than they were not going to treat it because it was too late.  The nursing student said she spent the rest of that day in tears as she hugged this woman before her family arrived.

3.)  The very next week this SAME nursing student witnessed a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) physically abuse a patient.  After telling her authorities she spent the rest of her clinical days being verbally abused by this man (who had been fired) who had abused the patient.

To say the least, this girl hates going to clinical and never plans to work in a hospital for the rest of her nursing career.

4.)  Another nursing student was heading into a nursing home to do an health interview with an elderly client.  She had been told by the client to go ahead and come in the room when she got there so that the client wouldn’t have to walk to the door to let her in.  On the day of the interview, she opened the door only to find her patient had passed away in her sleep the night before.  She was the first one that had found the patient.

Before today, I thought all of my fears were ridiculous and that they would probably happen to me some day, but not all at once.  I guess that’s not even guaranteed.  Today was a reality check for me for the world of nursing. We’re dealing with lives here, not just bumps and bruises.

another year, a new stage of life.

Time has flown and I find myself in a completely different stage of life from my last post at STP.  I am in my final year of college. Yes, that’s right, my FINAL year of college.  Feels like just yesterday that I watched my parents drop me off at school and drive away.  Now I’ve had my 5th, 1st day of college for the year and can’t believe how quickly time has flown.  The beginning of the school year has brought a lot of changes, many of which make me feel like an adult:

• I’m living in a house for the first time since leaving my parent’s house after college.  I’m living with four girls who are all out of school and in many different stages of life.  We have two names for our house…”The Transitional House”….and…well, “The Hot House.”  Don’t ask about the second one.  This move has put me on a kick of cooking and baking.  So far, I’ve made “Sweet Potato-Peanut Bisque,” “Chicken Mozzarella,” and “Cream Cheese brownies” (which were under 100 calories and included coffee, my fave!).  I’ll probably post some of the stuff that I try throughout the year.
• I am not only in my final year of school, but I am completing my 2nd and final year of nursing school.  The plan is to graduate in May 2011 with a Bachelor Degree in Nursing.  Then, I will spend all of June studying for the big daddy of them all, the NCLEX exam which will give me my license as a Registered Nurse.
• As I mentioned earlier, I am the only girl in my house who is still in school.  This has brought a change of pace to my life outside of school.  I have found myself being strategic in my placement for studying.

A little bit more on what Nursing school is going to look like, since this will basically run my life for the next 9+ months.  In the fall, I am taking 12 credits (all of which are nursing…which makes them out to be more like 22 credits).  I have four clinical sites that I will be at as well, which is super excited!  Why?  Because every clinical site that I will be at, but the exception of one, are all the areas that I am most interested in.  Therefore, that makes this fall really critical and fun for me!  I will be starting out my clinicals on a telemetry floor in Abbott-Northwestern.  A telemetry floor is a fancy word for Heart floor and we will have cases from heart failure, heart transplants, to LVAD surgeries (real Grey’s Anatomy type stuff).  I have another clinical day at a public health site where we will learn and experience health promotion, screening for different disabilities, and interaction with the community of Bloomington.  About halfway through the semester I will move from the telemetry floor to a Pediatric floor and then an OB (obstetrics) floor for three weeks each.

More than anything, I have felt challenged in my walk with God.  In a lot of ways, college has been a dream when it comes to my walk.  I was grafted into the ministry that I’ve been involved in for the last couple of years, Campus Outreach.  As I thought and prayed through this year, I have decided to remain involved in the ministry for my last year of college.  Since I’m in school for one more year, I want to be present hear.  However, the future is looming ahead.  Living with these girls who are living life in the “real world” has shown me that a lot of my walk with Christ is going to be me “fighting to remain in the love of God by his grace” (Jude 20-21).  I will be praying for wisdom and discernment for next year and his plans for my next stage of life.

Here is a picture of the girls who are living with me this year:

L to R: KB, Christel, Chris, Shannon (Shan-Shan) and myself all at the MN state fair!

to my dear little brother.

This is an email I wrote to Zach on Friday night.  This sums up how I’m doing pretty well and is in response to an encouraging email from him:

Zach,
Tonight my heart is at rest.  Jesus Christ has been faithful to tending to my heart and renewing my joy in him.  However small it may be at this point, it is there.  In the last few weeks, I have been convicted of sin and shown the depth of my transgressions in ways that I have never experienced before.  But I have allowed myself to dwell in my sin, rather than see my need for Jesus Christ and glory in his salvation of my soul.  I laid it all before him tonight and walked through Ephesians 2:1-9 with myself until my heart rejoiced in the gospel again.  Thank you for your last email.  It was used to point me to Christ and thru this I am thankful.  I thought that seeing the gospel again would make the emotional part of me calm down.  This is not the case.  My chest has tightened tonight and tears have flowed, but for once in a long time it’s because of Christ and not for myself.  He is so good to me, even when I don’t deserve it.  I am fearful that this rest will leave me and that I will give way to my self-centered sin again.  And this will happen at some point, which makes me thankful that my salvation rests assured on Jesus Christ death and resurrection on the cross…and not how I’m feeling about it.  Joshua 1:5, “…so I will be with you.  I will not leave you or forsake you.”  Thank you, Jesus.  ‘By his stripes, I have been healed.’—this is all I have going for me and it is forever enough.

Love you,
Kelsey

stepping heavenward.

Christel and I are currently reading Stepping Heavenward, which is a journal that walks through a woman’s journey as a believer.  At one point her pastor writes her a letter explaining the process of sanctification and our role in this.  This has impacted me greatly and feel like I could read this part of the book every day for the rest of my life and still gain from it.  Here is a portion of the letter:

“I am afraid that you are in danger of falling into an error only too common among young Christians.  You acknowledge that there has been enmity toward God in your secret soul and that one of the first steps toward peace is to become reconciled to Him and to have your sins forgiven for Christ’s sake.  This done, you settle down with the feeling that the great work of life is done and that your salvation is sure.  or, if not sure, that your whole business is to study your own case to see whether you are really in a state of grace.  Many persons never get beyond this point.  They spend their whole time in asking the question: ‘Do I love the Lord or no?’/ ‘Am I His or am I not?’

I beg you, my dear child, if you are doing this aimless useless work, to stop short at once.  Life is too precious to spend in a treadmill.  Having been pardoned by your God and Savior, the next thing you have to do is to show your gratitude for this infinite favor by consecrating your self entirely to Him, body, soul, and spirit..as soon as you become the Lord’s by your own deliberate and conscious act, He will begin that process of sanctification which is to make you holy as He is holy, perfect as He is perfect. He becomes at once your Physician as well as your dearest and best Friend, but He will use no painful remedy that can be avoided.  Remember that it is His will that you should be sanctified and that the work of making you holy is His, not yours.”

Zachy arrives today!

I apologize for the long time between my posts.  If one thing is true about STP, it’s that life doesn’t slow down.  The general feeling among the leaders is exhaustion: emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  I have found myself in a sick cycle.  I’m going to try to walk through it on here, but I’m not sure if this will be possible:

As an introvert, I need time by myself to rejuvenate and be refreshed.  I had a day off last week for this “refreshment” period, but my time was not restful at all.  In fact, I felt more anxiety afterwards.  So, I began my week with waning energy.  By Monday, I had hit rock bottom…and my next day off wasn’t (and still isn’t) until Saturday.  This began to play a role into my spiritual health.  I had zero desire to get into the Word.  The gospel not being fresh on my heart has lead to a restless and unsatisfied soul.  I feel like the verse is very true for me, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.” [Ps. 42:1]  My soul is dehydrated of the goodness of the gospel and I’m desperate for Jesus.

I think this whole week has been God’s goodness to me.  I make time by myself (a.k.a. “introvert time”) ultimate [place this above Jesus].  I think to myself, “If I get time by myself, then I will be okay.”  This is just not true.  As I said earlier, I had time by myself last week and was still not refreshed.  I see the Lord showing me that the rest my soul needs comes from the gospel.  In Matthew 11:29, Jesus says “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”  Before I was saved, I was not only not accepting God, I was running the opposite way from him as hard as I could.  When he grabbed a hold of my life and changed my heart he took all of my sins..anxieties…placed them on himself on the cross and said “I love you…so I give my life for you.” [Gal. 2:20]  His yoke is easy and his burden is light because all he has given me is grace, freedom, and mercy.

The one thing I have to rest in is that even when the good news of Jesus Christ doesn’t seem good to me, it is still good.  God is faithful, even when I am not.  How grateful I am for Him.

On a lighter note, the CCP ’10 team arrives in little less than an hour.  I’m so excited to see Zach and spend time with him while he’s here!

Here’s a couple pics from the last week or two:

Pic 1: Bro & I during social; Pic 2: Social- "Funk"; Pic 3: Larry & others on our team.