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!

Sick and School

I haven't blogged for a while for 2 reasons.

1)I was VERY sick last week. I had parotitis. Basically bacterial, unilateral, mumps. You can google it. It's gross. One side of my face was CRAZY swollen and hard as a rock and I had a fever, sore throat etc. The doctor said they only see this in the elderly and HIV patients and he has no idea why I would have gotten it. His best guess is that I was dehydrated. Weird. Anyway, antibiotics and some gross (squeezing the pus out) treatments later, I'm all better! Yay!

2)I had about 35 pages worth of papers due last week. About 12 pages of that was a word-for-word (cough-for-cough, sigh-for-sigh) verbatim of 20 minutes of one of my counseling sessions. I have been hearing since I started this program how hard verbatims are and how they take FOR.EVER. Chris has also been hearing this from me and decided there had to be ways to make it easier. So, being the fabulous husband that he is, he came up with all kinds of things that were a HUGE help. It was SO sweet that he cared enough about a project I had to do to put time and thought into making it easier. Thank you SOOO much! Practically, the process was much easier but it is slightly painful to watch yourself do therapy on video and have to record every "umm" and "like" (I discovered I say "kinda" A LOT). I did get a better understanding of what I need to work on from analyzing my every word so I guess it was a worthwhile exercise :-)

Speaking of work-it's going well. Slightly crazy that I'm "allowed" to be a therapist for unsuspecting clients but God is blessing the process. All of my clients are women or kids affected by domestic violence/abuse. I'm liking this population much more than I expected and also liking the people I work with quite a bit. I think it helps that almost of my clients are out of the abusive relationships and we're working on rebuilding their lives. Good stuff! I look forward to three more months there :-)

So, that's why I haven't blogged but get ready cause I have a bunch of posts in mind!