Today's musings

I just watched Gromit spend a satisfying 7 minutes playing with a cooked green bean. He had a contented purr the entire time and batted it back and forth, picked it up and moved it. He batted it off the couch, played on the floor with it for a bit, and then grabbed it and placed it back on the couch. It'd roll down towards me and be lost in the crease of the couch and my leg. Then he'd try diving for it, fail miserably, and I'd rescue it and place it further out on the couch again. It was quite fun to watch him. :)

Today was beautiful. I was also really able to focus in church and even though I checked the on-call phone a couple of times, I was able to do it calmly, without great trepidation. I was very thankful for the Lord's peace. And I was also grateful that there weren't any calls during church or even directly afterwards (or earlier in the morning for that matter either!).

I chatted with a girl at church I'd met once before a couple of weeks ago. She'd been out of town a lot and not been in most of the times I'd been going, hence only meeting once. Today we were able to have a proper conversation downstairs over drinks and snacks in the fellowship hall. What fun to find someone else about my age, interested in tea and movies and good books (Jane Austen was discussed) and teaching who was fun and vibrant! She had liked my hat the previous time we met, and today liked my new (to me) pink wool jacket, and we commented on the great finds made at op-shops. I felt like I may have finally met someone up here who is similar in spirit to me, not just job. While people at work are super lovely and we enjoy chatting about lives outside of the clinic, I miss talking God and getting really animated about art and English with someone. And I did today. It was very very nice. It was also very very nice to not talk vet for a while. Happy sigh.

 Plenty of calls today, but nothing yet that I needed to go in for. If I believed in luck or the ability to sway God with simple actions I would say 'Finger's crossed.' But I don't. I do, however, believe in a God who is actually all-powerful. This same God loves me intensely, and actually knows me intimately. Far more so than anyone else. Not only is He all-powerful, incredibly loving, and KNOW me, He has also planned good things for me. Good things to do, to be a part of, to have happen to.

I struggle to remember that when I am on call, or heading into work for the 'long' 3 days in a row. I struggle to keep fear at bay and hold onto His promises to never leave me and never forsake me. Because there's a lot of forsaking going on in the world. Sadly I do it at times too. This broken world has rotten necrotic shadows tainting every bit of it. God is the only good thing. And God so loved the whole wide world, that He gave Jesus, His only son, so that whoever believes in Jesus (as His sin-taker and place-maker) gets to have eternal LIFE. And anything else good in the world - comes from God. So when a surgery goes more quickly than I anticipated/dreaded, or when a followup consult shows a treatment success, a client is warm and welcoming, a difficult case is diagnosed, or there's some fun banter going on out back, that is God and His goodness.

It is also God and His goodness that helped me to not dread the calls last night, instead feeling concern for patients and wondering if some we'd seen that day were doing alright that night. It was a nice feeling, to not just feel put-upon or anxious. It is also God and His goodness that lets my purring kitten drape himself happily all over me or snuggle next to me for cuddles. God's goodness gives me a boss who is quick to praise and slow to be negative; quick to answer my calls and quick to support me. She is also a boss who takes the phone when I am sick, stays for an emergency just after closing rather than call me in, and shares food, hottubs, and life. She is a VERY gracious person, and I certainly couldn't have asked for a better new-grad boss. That is God's goodness to me.
So - when I am feeling overwhelmed, frustrated by surgeries, tired, homesick, apathetic, worried for Strudel, slow to process, and confused by clinical presentations, I will remember that God is good and has spread His goodness willingly around me. I want to trust Him to continue to do that.