Bible study at the Emert’s in Zambia.

I have had quite a few people recently ask me where I am and what I am doing so I thought I would write up an update to put on here.

So from October until February, I was living in IL and working in IA working my last travel therapy job. During that time I became involved in a church, started doing some awesome zumba, and made some great friends. The anticipation of leaving all of this was just not cool, so I decided to stop traveling and stay here in the quad cities.

In March, I was in Zambia for the month with Amy. It was an incredible month filled with business getting Amy’s house together, fun times with the children at Children’s Nest and making new friends. That month really confirmed that Zambia is where God is calling me to be.

For now though, I am back in the quad cities. I came back here in April and took a job at Illini Restorative Care Center as an OT. The job is going really well. I am loving working in a place where the other therapists are super friendly and helpful, and we can all joke around and laugh a lot. And the patients have for the most part been nice to work with. And, I love that I get out early enough that I can go to zumba a few days a week, lead worship with some great people for the youth group, and have time to spend with friends. Living by the Mississippi River is pretty with sunsets and different birds and a nice trail that I go rollerblading on a lot.

Me and Nasher at the zoo!

Awesome OTs who I work with

Church and Zumba friends

Birds on the Mississippi

I am excited for this summer with trips to SD and NY and other random adventures that may come up! I have added in some pictures of recent adventures.

Pictures can say more than I can put into words so here are a few out of the over hundred pictures from Zambia!

Beautiful Ruth 

 Victoria Falls for my birthday with Amy and the Emert Family.         (Me, Olivia, Lincoln and Jude)

Fun times at Children's Nest!
 



 


  

J and I were talking today about how fast time goes by today. I mentioned how when I told people I was coming here to Zambia for a month they would comment about how long of a time that is when in all reality, this month is going to go by way too quickly. I feel like the past few years have flown by and I can not believe it is already March of 2015!

This weekend I have been reflecting on the past couple years and all of the ways I have discovered my identity and who I am in Christ and the freedom that comes with that. Two years ago yesterday I walked out of Sol Stone after my first time there for treatment. Those two years feel like they have flown by and life has been a big adventure learning about God’s grace and his love and forgiveness. There is a song I have been listening to a lot by Lauren Daigle that I love and feel like it is so true in my life. Here is the song:

How Can It Be

I am guilty

Ashamed of what I’ve done, what I’ve become

These hands are dirty

I dare not lift them up to the Holy one

 Chorus

You plead my cause

You right my wrongs

You break my chains

You overcome

You gave Your life

To give me mine

You say that I am free

How can it be

How can it be

 I’ve been hiding

Afraid I’ve let you down, inside I doubt

That You could love me

But in Your eyes there’s only grace now

 Bridge

Though I fall, You can make me new

From this death I will rise with You

Oh the grace reaching out for me

How can it be

I lived for so long and continue to somedays ashamed and feeling guilty of my eating disorder and how I have thought about and treated my body. I had made it my identity and my secret that I tried to keep from everyone and I felt like it was something that I could never overcome. It was this chain holding me down for so long.

This song though is a huge reminder of how God can break any chain and give me a life that is free. God continues to pour out His love and His grace towards me. And it is only through that, that I am able to pick myself up when I fall and continue to walk towards freedom.

What are things that make you feel secure in life? Is it being close to your family, having a job, having the finances you need, having a place to live? When we feel secure is it because we are doing or because we have things that are readily available to us even though we may not be happy with it, or are we doing something because we really want to and feel that it is what we are supposed to be doing?

As I was preparing for this trip to Zambia, one of the things that I was focused on was securing a job for when I return in April. I always have this fear of not having a job leading to not having a source of income leading to not being able to take care of myself. I went back and forth between a couple of different options. The first was taking a job that was offered to me which would be one of the easiest things to do but would I really be happy with it? The next option was to continue traveling which is what I did end up settling for. While talking with my recruiter she continually stated money facts to me. It did not matter how many times I told her that I wanted to stay living where I am and not leave the area, she would come back with but you know you could be making so much more money if you just did…..Right before I left the states, I signed a contract for a travel position about 1.5 hours away from where I live. That means 3 hours of driving a day! I settled with something that I don’t necessarily want to or feel led to do by reasoning that I need to be secure with a job and income when I get back because that is the most important thing.

Since arriving in Zambia, I have been feeling this pull to move here and be a full time missionary….seems crazy to even be writing that. It is something that I have felt called to do since I was around the age of 7 so I don’t know why it seems so crazy. But I keep reasoning and telling myself that I could never actually do that. I need to be in the states, I need to work, I need to make money, I won’t be able to raise money in order to support myself, and even more things. I get so confused about what I am supposed to be doing!

Today I was reading part of a book my small group back in Iowa is doing called “Battlefield of the Mind” by Joyce Meyer. At one point I read this passage:

“When God speaks, through His Word or in our inner man, we are not to reason, debate, or ask ourselves if what He has said is logical. When God speaks, we are to mobilize-not rationalize.”

She then talks about trusting God and not relying on our own human reasoning. She references Proverbs 3:5 “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.”

Joyce then goes on to talk about the correlation between reasoning and confusion. The more we reason the more confused we may become. Hmmm….for me that totally makes sense and is where I am finding myself.

Finding myself in a position to fully trust God and allow Him to direct me and not rely on my own reason and confusion is a scary thing. And a hard thing to do. It is definitely something I still need to work on and pray about a lot. But I do know that the best security I have is my relationship with God and it is only through him that I will have understanding and guidance in what my next phase in life is to be. And who knows…maybe that next step is moving here to Zambia!

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

-Phil 4:13

Growing up, whenever I was asked what my favorite Bible verse was, I would saw Phil 4:13. To be honest, the reason I recited that verse was because it was an easy one that I had memorized. It wasn’t until I was a teenager or even older that I really read that verse and put my own name and circumstances into that verse and believed that I can do anything if I allow God to guide me and strengthen me through the process.

This week is National Eating Disorders Awareness week. This week never meant anything to me until about 9 years ago when I started realizing that I could change my eating and exercise behaviors and lose weight and I was then diagnosed with an eating disorder. One of the biggest problems became the fact that no matter how much weight I lost and how much people commented on it, it was never good enough and so continued on this destructive cycle for many years. It wasn’t until two years ago that I realized how unhealthy I was and I decided it was time to do something. (OK, so honestly it wasn’t my choice to get help at first, but I am so thankful I did!)

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

-Jer 29:11

It is so encouraging to know that God has great plans! I have thought throughout life that I had everything planned out perfectly….but God had something else in mind. When I went into treatment, I learned so much about myself and learned very quickly that I could not do things on my own and needed to rely on God to give me the courage and confidence to go into each day and face the challenges that came my way. God’s plan was not for me to keep living my life under control of food and exercise and allowing fear to keep me from doing things that I love. His plan was for me to learn who I really am on the inside, become a therapist, and do missions!

HOPE: A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. A feeling of trust. A wanting of something to happen.

A friend of mine sent me a necklace when I was in treatment that says HOPE. I love this word! I was living for so many years with unrealistic and not healthy expectations feeling that I had to change my appearance in order to be accepted and good enough. I learned and am still in the process of learning and remembering to trust God and live with a desire to follow God’s will for my life!

It is really just over the past couple weeks that I have really found this hope again and have not allowed an eating disorder to control my life. But instead I am focused on recovery and allow my hopes and dreams guide me in life. I am so thankful for this recovery and and hope and that I am able to serve God doing things like going to Zambia in a couple days for a month! I know there is no way that I could get to where I am today without trust in God and the amazing encouraging and supportive people He has put in my life! Living life with more positive thinking and feeling free is such a good feeling and gives me so much more energy to live each day!

Lots of reflecting going on this week and I pray for anyone struggling with an eating disorder that they will find hope and freedom!

Only 3 weeks left and my contract here in Iowa will be done! My time here in Iowa/Illinois has had its ups and downs. I have made some incredible friends here who are now like family to me. I have been able to join the worship team at Grace Family Church and am helping out with leading the youth. I love being a part of something again! I love it so much that I am looking for a permanent job here.

I am nervous to have a “real”, permanent job again. I won’t have the freedom I have right now to go away and take trips as often. But, it is worth it to stay here. When I started traveling, I had a few goals. Two of those were to figure out what setting I want to really work in and to figure out where I wanted to live for longer term. Over the past 17 months that I have been traveling, I think I have almost figured those two things out. I discovered that I love working in the hospital setting, and I am thinking that this is where I am going to settle for awhile. I loved Texas a lot, but there is just something about being here that makes me want to stay.

My most exciting update is that I am going to Choma, Zambia for the month of March! I am adding a link to this so that you can read about what I will be doing and how you can support me.

http://www.gofundme.com/l6gwb4

Right now, I am going to do some baking and get settled in with some crocheting and a movie and pray that the snow storm we are supposed to get stays away!

I realized recently that I have written a post in quite a while. There have been so many days when I think about sitting and doing something however never take the time to actually do it! So I will start while sitting in Starbucks right now.

I am still working in Clinton, IA at Comprehensive Rehab and just moved out of the hotel in Clinton a couple weeks ago to Moline, IL to a house with two roommates. Hotels are nice to visit and stay in while on vacation, but when you live in one (especially a loud one), it gets old really fast. So I am very thankful to my friend Laurie who introduced me to these two girls looking for another roommate! I now have a room in a house and more importantly a kitchen.

My job is going pretty well. They are keeping me insanely busy so am exhausted by the end of the day/week but I love my little kiddos I work with. I have especially loved being creative during Thanksgiving and Christmas making crafts and ornaments and different things with them.  My supervisor recently told me that they are going to make me an offer to stay….wow….lots to think about with that one. Am I ready to settle down in one place for an extended period of time again? Am I ready to stop traveling and seeing new places? Am I ready to have limited control of when I can take time off (I know that one seems kind of minor, but it is a big question for me when my family is so far away and I also like to be able to take mission trips and things like that). Do I want to do outpatient therapy here or work somewhere else and if I do that do I stay here or find a job somewhere else?

My last question and one of the biggest/hardest ones is am I ready to once again leave some amazing friends that I have made and leave a place again where I feel like I have a place and feel accepted? Honestly, no I am not ready for that and do not want to do that. So that should ultimately make my decision a hundred times easier but it doesn’t.

I have had some great times here in the past two months that I have lived here. Lots of places to go and take pictures, rock climbing with one of my co workers, lots of stories from work, becoming part of a church and joining the worship team, lunch and dinner out with friends, zumba, baking cookies and playing games with N, gingerbread houses with C and T, Disney on Ice, Christmas parade with L and N, Ugly Sweater Party, and probably so many more than I can’t think of while sitting here right now….

I feel like this is a time for me to grow and learn about myself, my faith, what my purpose is. I have been reading a devotion with my friend J called “100 Days to Right Believing”. Everyday when reading this devotion, I am reminded about God’s grace and how I am perfected only in Him. I can have confidence in myself and have confidence that God forgives my sins and can see past them to who I really am. I am reminded that my identity is in Him and that I am a Child of God and my identity is not in things that I struggle with. Now, if I could remember that all day everyday, it would be awesome.

Only 4 days until Christmas and I can not wait to go home and see my family. I have not seen them since the very beginning of October. My nieces have been growing so much and I love to see their personalities come out through pictures and videos sent to me, but it will be great to see them in person! I work until 3 on Christmas Eve and get home sometime after midnight in NY….3pm on Wednesday can’t come soon enough!

I guess that is good for an update right now and I hope to make it a habit to write more often.

Merry Christmas!!

I have been thinking a lot recently about fear. Fear comes in different forms and can keep us from doing things that may be outside of our comfort zone because we don’t know what is on the other side or what could potentially happen if we try something. This past week I let some fears get the best of me in terms of being afraid of people and places and the potential of having bad dreams which led me to very restless nights of little sleep.

However there are other fears that I jumped over and took a leap of faith hoping that the outcome would be better than sitting with the fear. I talked to people at work more and felt more confident with my abilities. When other people came to me with questions, it was hard for me to answer them at first because I was afraid of what they might think. But, I have learned that being confident in myself and what I know is a big thing so I just kept reminding myself that I know what I am doing and talking about and could answer questions with confidence instead of cowering in unrealistic fears.

Since I was little, I have been terrified of heights. One of my cousins has this joke that it took me forever before I could even climb a flight of stairs without being scared. I have done things to try to prove to myself and other people that I am not afraid of heights like going on rollercoasters and Ferris wheels and climbing to the top of very high buildings in order to look over the edge at a beautiful landscape. Last week one of my co workers invited me to go out rock climbing with her and her husband. My first reaction was great, that sounds like fun to go out and do something new! That is part of my adventures in traveling. Then I stopped and realized what I had said/agreed to do. I must say that I am a lot better and more comfortable taking pictures of mountains and big rocks that I am climbing them. So yesterday I went out and climbed a VERY large rock, scaling the side of it hoping my hands and feet would find the next hole and hold me up.

One of the first things I had to do while going up the big rock was to learn to trust the rope that I was attached to. I had to learn that the rope was strong and that even if I did slip or start to fall, the rope would catch me basically. Have B at the bottom manning the rope also helped because I knew he was strong enough to help keep me steady and he wouldn’t let me fall. My first time trying to go up, I was so scared about what I was doing and how far off the ground I was that I really didn’t make it very far until my arms just couldn’t hold me up any longer. The second time though, I made it more than half way up and was quite a bit faster because I was more confident in myself and my ability to grab places on the rocks and pull myself  up but I was also more confident in the rope and other gadgets I was attached to in order to keep me up there and safe.

I am quite proud of myself for overcoming my fear of heights and going out and doing something fun and adventurous! I won’t say that I wasn’t terrified at times, but it was so worth it and I would definitely do it again sometime. So…what fears are you going to stand up to this week?

How many times as a child did you ask that question to your mom, dad, grandparents, teachers…? And even if you did not ask if audibly, how often did you think it? Now as an adult, how many times a day do you want to ask that question to your boss, friends, spouse, anyone around?

I have a little 5 yr old patient, K, who asks me many times during our sessions when I tell her how great she is doing, are you proud of me? I reassure her, yes K I am so proud of you. Many of my little patients just want assurance throughout our sessions that they are doing good and that I am seeing that and am proud of them.

The OT assistants who I work with do not necessarily come out and ask the question, but they come to me and ask me to read their notes and ask me about what they are doing with patients to be reassured that they are doing okay and the right things.

I find myself as an adults, a professional wanting to ask people some days are you proud of me? Did I do a good job? Is this good enough? Even today after writing a report yesterday about a patient I showed it to the other OT and I wanted feedback. I also wanted feedback about other pieces of the job since this is my first week there. But, I am not getting what I want. I am not getting the approval or the “I am proud of you” type response that I am looking for.

So…it made me think. Why do we continue to seek approval from people when the most important place to seek approval from is God? And with God, we already have His approval. And it is only with God that we can have the confidence to continue going day after day through every circumstance that may come our way. And even when we may stray a little off the path just like my little K cutting off the of the line, God is still there and He loves us and is proud of us for trusting Him allowing Him to help get us back on the path to walk the straight line.

From the time we are little, we all have something that brings us comfort. When we are young, it could be a blanket, our parents, a stuffed animal, sucking our thumb, or having our cup of milk.

As we get older, our comforts change to different people, objects, foods, drinks…..

With all of the frequent changes that come with my job, I am finding that I have comforts that I look for at each place for continuity. I don’t think I really realized though that I looked for these things as comfort until now when I was looking for them and either could or could not find them.

I found the Target/Walmart where I can quickly grab things when I need them. I can even walk to them if I want to! But, I have not found a craft store like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby and most importantly a coffee shop. There is no Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. I did find a little Starbucks in a grocery store, but it isn’t the same as a real Starbucks store! I think the coffee is my biggest comfort I am missing. Coffee is such a marvelous thing. I don’t even care about the caffeine. I just love the different flavors you can have and the warmth. Oh coffee how I miss you and I even have straws to drink you with!