Word of 2012

A couple years ago, I was encouraged to pick a word for the year to use as a reminder, as an encouragement, and as a goal. The word for 2011 was "Kingdom". You can read about that HERE. Meditating on Kingdom that year resulted in me letting go of my kingdom/life in Chicago and moving back home to Texas in June 2011. Big change!!

In the fall of 2011, after a few months of looking for a job in Austin, I was telling God how frustrated I was at leaving Chicago - good job, ministry, friends etc - to come to Texas and struggled to understand. He clearly guided my thoughts to consider taking my eyes off of myself and asked me if I would find contentment in Him alone - not in a big city, great church, fun social things that Austin has to offer -but in Him.

Choosing the word for 2012...

This lead to my being willing to be made willing (ha) to look for a job in Temple (my home town - a city of about 68,000.) I had resisted it greatly and realized it was because I didn't want 'normal'. I wanted adventure, challenges, visible movements of God - and in my pride I thought that moving home was going to restrict God somehow. It was a pretty humbling process.

God did a visible miracle, though, one Saturday afternoon at the end of September 2011. I had planned a fun weekend in Austin. But then found out that my family was going to go to the Open House of the new Children's Hospital in Temple. I had no desire (still) to work in Temple or at the hospital (so odd since I love children). But I didn't want to miss out on taking my nephews for their first outing. I cancelled my Austin plans. We arrived at the hospital and all the fun kid stuff was outside. I planned on staying out there and didn't want to go inside (rebellious much?). However, the dust outside was bothering my mom, so I went inside with her. She asked me if I would go on the tour with her (all the moms - you know what she was up to!). So we made our way around the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors.

Nice place, I was thinking, but that was about it. We got onto the elevator and found out that the 4th and 5th floors are identical, so we planned on just seeing one. I pushed '5' and a family came in after us and pushed '4'. When the doors opened on 4, my mom asked if I wanted to get out there. In that God-ordained moment (as I would soon discover), I said "Let's just get out here."

The 4th floor is an inpatient floor and it reminded me of when I was a nurse at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago. I was interested in how technology has changed. There were some hospital staff standing around to answer questions. I stopped and literally asked 2 simple questions about the technology to a young woman staff member.

After those 2 questions, the conversation went like this:
Her "Are you a nurse?
Me  "Yes"
Her  "Are you looking for a job?"
Me  "Um, yes." (insert 'God, what are you up to' thought)
Her  "Do you have leadership experience?"
Me   "Yes"
Her  "Night shift ok for you?"
Me   "Yes (no, but yes because I just want to see what you'll say next)
Her  "Hold on, let me get my boss"

She introduced me to Shawn, one of the directors. They had hired three Hospital Supervisors and needed one more. While they had interviewed others, the spot was still open. Right there, in the middle of the hallway, I had an on-the-spot interview! Mind you, I was in shorts, a tank top and my hair was piled on top of my head. :) Shawn then said that she wanted the Chief Nursing Officer to meet with me and tht she'd call me the next day.

Mom and I left the building just shaking our heads and kinda stunned by how God orchestrated that conversation. He guided me to get off on the 4th floor so that I would then run into Jaylee, who would be so bold to connect me (a stranger!) to Shawn!

Four days later, after almost 6 hrs of interviews, I was offered the job of Hospital Administrative Supervisor!

Ok - so then I knew I would be living in Temple and not Austin - and was aware that it would be a big adjustment.

So, the word of 2012 has been "Embrace".

I wanted to mentally and spiritually embrace life in Temple and not resist it. This word has REALLY helped me so much!!

Things I have embraced about living in my hometown:
~ 5 minute commute to work
~ able to see my family all the time
~ am smack dab in Central TX, so I take road trips a lot to see my friends in Austin, Houston and Dallas.
~ things are cheaper here
~ parking is a non-issue. In Chicago, it's part of your daily strategy to survive.
~ all the issues in a big city are here, too - child abuse, homelessness, poverty - and there are many ways to help and get involved. My job, specifically, gives me great opportunities to love on the children and to learn what the needs of the community are.
~ I don't have the view I had in Chicago (18th story view of city and Lake Michigan), but God gave me a great deal on renting a beautiful home with a yard in a quiet neighborhood
~ I can be anywhere I need to be in about 10 minutes (it sometimes took 10 minutes to take the elevator down to my spot in the parking garage and get to the first stop light).

Embrace was truly the perfect word for 2012. I made the concious effort almost every day to CHOOSE to embrace something, a lesson I hope to carry with me the rest of my life. The examples above are just the tip of the ice berg. Every day we are given many opportunities to choose to embrace what's in front of us, what is affecting us, what is available to us. So many times in my life I have wasted the opportunity to be grateful, to learn, to be challenged. Resisting takes more effort than embracing.

2011: Kingdom
2012: Embrace
2013: TBA!!