Update...

So, my life is insane right now so blog posts might be rare for a while. I have about 85 client contact hours to accumulate over the next few months in order to finish my 2nd (and final!) year of clinical work as a therapist. 85 hours is A LOT considering how many people with mental health issues don't show up or cancel appointments (not shocking, they are in crisis after all). So, in order to get all these hours I've had to add a 2nd clinical site, a 3rd day of work, and extend my hours at my original site. Add in 2 20 page papers and 2 2hour presentations over the next 6 weeks and I'm a tad overwhelmed. I'm trying to spend every other waking moment with Ella and Chris. So, if I seem MIA, that's why. Still here, just busier than normal.

God's been teaching me a lot that is really sustaining me through this time. For instance, He's been using the analogy of labor pains a lot to assure me that this challenging process is simply the "labor" before something amazing and new is "born" in me. There are things I'm learning and ways I'm growing and skills I'm acquiring through this process that could not be birthed in any other way. So the pain is worth it, as it always is with a baby.

Another thing God's been saying is through a verse Chris shared with me. It's in 2 Samuel 24:24 where David is talking to a guy named Araunah. Araunah offers to give King David some animals to sacrifice. But David insists that he "will not offer to the Lord something that cost [him] nothing." This really struck me. Do I want to offer God things that cost me nothing? Absolutely not. He is worthy of the best I can give. Counseling is a calling I feel He has clearly put on my life ("to preach good news to the poor...to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release the prisoners from darkness..." Isaiah 61:1). So as I offer this calling back to God as a ministry to hurting people, how much is that offering worth if it costs me nothing? If it was easy? If I could get it "cheap"? So, the sacrifices I'm making now are worth it if I'm able to offer God something with value in the end. When the cost feels great this verse reminds me that I would not want to offer anything less.

So, that's the update. Chris is uber-supportive and reminds me this is worth it when I forget :-) Thankfully my time away from Ella has only increased by one afternoon and she's spending that time with her cousins (thanks Amy!!) which she LOVES. This time will pass (by May God-willing!) but until then, trying to stay focused on truth and push through the "labor pains" and see what God has for us on the other side!