When most of the nation went into lock-down this last spring, healthcare workers were part of the essential team leaving the safety and security of our homes, facing fears for what we may be exposed to, carrying concern for what we may encounter. There was a heaviness in our hospital environment as masks were suddenly required, visitors were restricted, and resources of common commodities, like disinfectants, were projected to be in short supply. We didn’t pause or take a time-out for formulating opinions or challenging conspiracies. With the weight of an infectious disease looming around us, with our friends, family, neighbors, and church family tucked away in quarantine at home, we continued doing what we’ve always done, we showed up to serve. We tried to be reassuring and comforting, a source of strength to our patients while in need of much the same ourselves.
Moving social media posts boosted morale. Chalk messages, written on the pavement as we climbed the stairs and entered into our places of employment, reinforced our courage for the unknown.
But it’s been heavy. And while we presently know a bit more, it is still heavy. In some ways more now than before, exhausted by the ongoing disputes of necessary pandemic precaution while simultaneously watching NICU parents endure the sacrifice of their family’s presence to support them in navigating some of the most difficult days of their lives. It is a consistent weight on our hearts that accompanies us every time we walk through the doors.
The weight is enough to make a soul shift between mentally checking out and passionately conveying insights of these present realities.
It’s enough to make a heart throw the emotional hands up feeling like no one cares.
That’s where I was coming home from work one evening.
I pulled in the garage, removed my shoes before stepping foot in the house, and headed straight for the shower. My family knows I’m unavailable for hugs until after I shed my presumably contaminated scrubs and undergo my disinfecting process.
This one particular night I walked out of the hospital disheartened, but arrived home in full conqueror mode, made quite apparent by my impromptu shower speech. Sometimes I joke that if no one is giving us a positive word of encouragement or a moving motivational speech, we just have to give it to ourselves. The indicated fire inside my heart could have substituted the hot water producing such a thick billowing steam.
“Babe,” I began, Brandon so graciously prepared for yet another word powerfully placed in my heart. “I just feel like God has something significant for us in 2022 and now is the time to be patient and persevere. He is working something in us right now that we can’t overlook. If He has us in this place, then He is preparing us for something significant.”
There was a pause of silence. Not uncommon for my husband who is an internal processor, so completely opposite of me who has to talk through all the steps of mental digestion.
Out of the silence came a calm and puzzling, “Yea, well okay. So, has God laid anything on your heart for 2021?”
2021?!?!
2021?!?!?!
“Oh, my word!!! This is still 2020!!!” I realized.
It all sunk in at that moment, making it apparent the steam was obviously from the excessively hot water, because the fire inside of me immediately extinguished with that very one reality check that it was still presently the year 2020.
“No,” I replied. “I don’t have anything for 2021.”
No word of encouragement for the near future.
No boost of optimism for the upcoming months.
Had I missed something? Nope. Not a thing.
While it might be natural to feel somewhat discouraged by the possibility of our personal and professional challenges to continue, there’s been some further prayer and positivity reinfused into the circumstance.
Before something significant can happen TO us, something significant has to take place IN us.
And stillness has the opportunity to allow the space for something of great significance to happen IN all of us.
Maybe instead of maintaining primary focus for 2022 when God has laid something significant on my heart for our family, I should be relishing in the present-day moments for the significant elements He is working and creating in us right now.
Challenges change us and when we look back on the seasons of growth and change, how can we not be filled with gratitude and praise for the opportunity to pass through such places of refinement?
No doubt, I will be so very thankful when we are all on the other side of these difficult days, the disease and disagreements infecting so many I love, but if God has allowed us to be in it, then we can be confident He’ll produce significance from it.
PSALM 46:10 NLT “BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD! I WILL BE HONORED BY EVERY NATION. I WILL BE HONORED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.”
Heather Meadows
….grew up on family land in rural Oklahoma. She married her high school sweetheart in 1999 and they welcomed four children into their lives over the next decade. In 2012, Heather graduated from The University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. She uses her experiences of overcoming a life-threatening injury in her work as a neonatal nurse, writer, and speaker, and has shared her account of survivorship through a powerfully inspiring memoir titled Transforming Tragedy. Heather serves events, conferences, schools, businesses, banquets and churches through inspirational and motivational speaking. Heather and her husband Brandon are raising their children on the land where she grew up with her favorite black lab Ruby Sue.
CONNECT WITH HEATHER THROUGH FACEBOOK: HEATHER MEADOWS, INSTAGRAM: HEATHERMEADOWS RN, TWITTER: HEATHER R MEADOWS, OR EMAIL: INFO@HEATHERMEADOWS.COM
