“And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14 ESV
About a week ago, I received a phone call that left me driving down the highway in tears.
Over the past three years, I have lived my life in three month intervals, or what I call ‘seasons of life’. At the intersection of each three month period, I have gone before the Lord with the intention and desire to follow His lead into whatever He has planned next for me on this adventure of life.
East or west? Up or down? Mountains or corn fields? Domestic or international? I truly never know which direction I will go, and honestly, every time I have tried to guess, I’ve been nearly 100% wrong.
Up until the pandemic, I was alternating between travel nursing assignments in various states and time spent in Costa Rica; the place where God first revealed my heart for missions and where much of my heart remains to this day.
I absolutely love being a nurse. I love the many opportunities that are presented within the four walls of the hospital, I love watching a team come together in providing care, and I love getting to know my patients beyond their medical diagnosis and bed number. Every single time that I have returned to nursing after a few months away, I am reenergized in being reminded and reassured that God has perfectly placed, equipped and prepared me to be a nurse.
But I also love missions. I love experiencing the depth of cultures different than that of my own and immersing into them as much as possible. I love building relationships with people from so many different walks of life and coming to know familiar faces around a town so far from home. I love navigating the unknowns and building memories on the miscommunications of language barriers. I love being able to focus so much of my time on Christ in the way that it should be and I love the opportunities to share the love of Jesus so freely, openly, and boldly, through words and actions.
Each time that I would come before the Lord in the gap between seasons, I would wonder if perhaps it were time for nursing and missions to merge, or if they ever would, and each time, I was met with a no… or rather a no, not yet.
God has shown me so much in keeping these two entities separate thus far in my life. Of course, there are times to share Christ through the nursing role and there are times to use my nursing skills in the mission field, but in not directly bringing the two together, God has made me more greatly aware of the passion that He has placed in me for both nursing and missions. My eagerness and appreciation for both components has only increased and He has continued to equip me in ways far beyond that which I can comprehend.
After more than three years, I received the phone call that brought the two into one. In June, I was officially offered a position on the nursing roster for a disaster response team through Samaritan’s Purse and last week we were called to deploy in response to the rising COVID numbers in Mississippi; now the number one hotspot in the world.
After confirming my availability and being scheduled to fly out two days later, I hung up the phone and immediately called a friend to tell him the news. Much to my surprise (and probably his too!), I had hardly gotten out all of the words before I was in tears. They were not tears of fret or fear, but a result of being so completely overwhelmed by the goodness of God. Almost immediately, I could look back on the past three years, the past few months, the past week, and even the past twenty-four hours and see God’s hand so evidently at work; all leading up to this moment.
As I have taken these steps of faith in this writing journey of the past month or two, God has met me in such an intimate and incredible way every single day. He has overwhelmed me in the way that He provides and sustains every single day. My faith has been stretched and my dependence upon Him has grown significantly, but when I broke down on the phone that day, I was overwhelmed to even greater measures and I knew that I would only be stretched and grown in greater ways going forward.
I couldn’t even begin to question if this was His plan for me, because He had laid it out so clearly. Though I am sure that I overlooked many details and I know that my vision is so limited compared to His, I was just in awe of the way that He had moved in my life and so thankful for the small glimpse of His goodness that He had given me in that moment.
If only I could capture the fullness of the goodness of God in mere words. Believe me, I would write it down for you. I would pass it along on a piece of paper in hopes that you too, would be overwhelmed to the point of joyful tears. But it is truly inexplicable and it is so personal.
What I can tell you, however, is that God will pursue you in this way, or maybe He already has. It’s what He does. It may not be the merging of nursing and missions or end with tears flowing down your face while your driving down the highway, but He won’t hold back His love and He would love to overwhelm you with His goodness too.
Don’t miss it and don’t be afraid to shed a few tears along the way. He truly is just that good.
