Bloom

Bloom

Living Free Thursday

 

 

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? 

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

When I read Suzanne Ellers post “I rather be a late bloomer.” I knew what God wanted me to write about. In 1984, immersed in vice-gripping headaches, not able to care for myself much less my two small sons, I was admitted to a hospital for the sole purpose of going through a pain center. I learned many life lessons during those six weeks of hospitalization. One lesson was that I was in the driver’s seat of my life, God was not the co-pilot, he was the pilot. I had a dream of becoming a nurse but when I was released from the hospital, I was trained as a medical assistant. Another lesson is that I can do all things through Jesus Christ. I pursed my dream and after I completed my medical assistant certificate, I worked and went to school enrolled in the necessary science classes, and then one day, I started nursing school. Lastly, I placed my faith in God and did not worry about tomorrow, graduating in 1989 with my Associate’s Degree in Nursing.

Chronic migraine headaches and pain are still present in my life. But every day I put one foot in front of the other and I bloom where God plants me. I have had an amazing career as a nurse. I became a nurse when I was thirty-nine years old. I faced my pain and my fear of failure reaching for goals God planted in my heart as a little girl. I bloomed late as a nurse but right on time to be used by God.