Hospital visit

One of my fellow nurses was admitted to the hospital yet again yesterday. I stopped by to visit after my daily 4:30 PM huddle meeting this afternoon.

My co-worker told me her story of how this admission is due to chest pain, of which she does have a legit cardiac history. She is in her 30's. She is a smoker. She is a mother, daughter, and wife. As a cardiac nurse, she admittedly does know better. This hospital visit is hopefully a wake up call to make some changes in her life.

She quietly then told me that she's been meaning to ask me something personal. She suggested that perhaps the string of unfortunate events (ie her health, marriage, finances, family) was happening to her due to her lack of a spiritual life. She was wanting to know how she could talk to a priest. I advised her how she could simply call a parish and request to speak with one. I personally recommended Fr Harry.

I asked her how her own faith, her own prayer life was. She shared how her mother committed suicide and that she was angry with God for a time. But she has realized that it was her own mother's poor choice, her own free will to make such a decision.

I, in turn, shared the gospel with her from this past weekend.
Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do people say I am?"
They reply, "John the Baptist, one of the prophets..."
Jesus then asks them, "Who do you say that I am?"
Peter replied, "You are Christ, son of God."

Fr Harry challenged us this weekend. If Jesus were to ask us, "Who do you say I am?" What would be your answer? My immediate answer this past weekend and what I shared with my fellow nurse this evening is that Jesus is my friend.

I talk with Jesus as I would speak with a close friend. I'm honest. I tell him I'm tired and weak. I told her my prayer that carries me before going to work every time is for love and patience for all those I encounter and/or any situation I will face.

She expressed feeling desolate. I of course had to share Ignatian spirituality with her. I touched on the key point of "finding God in all things." Finding God in each person I encounter, those you love, those who annoy you or who you may struggle to love.

As I have come to know by heart, I shared with her the Falling in Love reflection by Pedro Arrupe, SJ.

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in a love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the mornings, what you will do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”

I encouraged her to find the good, our God in everything.

I couldn't help but feel honored to share my faith, to share Christ with her.

A secret

A secret that brings peace and joy to my heart.

I wanted to shout this secret from the rooftops! But my cautious side had me acting otherwise. I went about my work day as if nothing had happened, but I was certainly quietly joy-filled. I soon had to tell the chosen few to start! I hesitated posting about this until I shared this "secret" with close family and friends.

The joyful secret is that my husband and I are finally pregnant. Not that we were trying to conceive for that long, though it felt like it at times!

It was no secret that we were trying to conceive. I jokingly told some co-workers and friends that our honeymoon, which we took two years after our wedding date, could actually be called our "conception-moon." I knew the dates were off to actually conceive at the time, but it was fun to think and joke around about. A fellow nurse asked if I had ever heard of Kokopelli. She told me of this fertility god, which her sister had believed in and eventually had a son. We googled this Native American deity and found out more for ourselves. She still has yet to lend this Kokopelli doll to me. Not that I need it anymore.

Being Catholic, my husband and I have been followers of Natural Family Planning. I have been charting (on and off) my temperatures and cervical mucus since well before we were married. I was pretty confident when I was fertile and not so fertile. We had the avoiding pregnancy thing down!

On my off days from work, I was pretty obsessed in finding out how we could best improve our chances at trying to conceive. But we were already avoiding alcohol, we are non-smokers, and we generally were following a good diet. It was assuring to read the statistics that only 25% of couples get pregnant during the first month of trying, but over half get it right in the next six months.

As we are barely at six weeks now, my greatest fear in sharing our "secret" is the risk of miscarriage. Russ and I talked about this. We decided that we wouldn't want to keep it a secret should we happen to miscarry the little one. And it sure would be nice if our faith-filled family and friends are offering their prayers up for the health of the baby.

Perhaps the part of me that doesn't care to be the center of attention is also setting in, to keep this good news quiet for now. Because the few essential people know now, maybe I wouldn't mind if this secret was leaked.