The past couple of years God has been working on me by teaching me how to be selfless. I left a job I loved because in my heart I knew God was doing a new thing. I started working in a hospital. Not quite the plush job of an outpatient orthopedic clinic, but God had a plan. The first couple of months was torture for me. I was miserable, but as I discovered my place that misery turned into one of the greatest blessings in my life. I remember walking a mile to my car one day, because we park that far away, and telling my best friend that God didn't have me here for me He had me here for my patients, specifically my 7E patients. I was here to learn important lessons and it was not about me!!! So I settled in and have met some amazing people. My favorite patients are the ones on 7E, which is the multiple myeloma floor. Multiple myeloma is a terminal cancer affecting patients young and old and it is no respecter of persons. It is a mean disease and I hate it!!! My first month there I fell in love with a family from Hattiesburg, MS. The wife was diagnosed and her husband stayed with her every night. I got to know this lovely couple and was able to encourage them in Jesus. They are believers and the wife went to be with Jesus on April 16th,2008, the same morning my precious niece, Analee, was born. This day was bittersweet, but it was only the beginning. The next night I was invited by a friend to attend a Wycliffe Bible Translators banquet in Hot Springs. I was going to encourage him in his desire to work in missions. Little did I know God, as He always does, God had other plans in store. I listened at this banquet as a man shared his story of Bible translation. The goal of Wycliffe is to translate the Bible to all nations who do not have it in their language and some do not have the written word at all. That was all she wrote, I was hooked. I have developed such a love for God's Word in my walk with Him that was all I needed to hear. I wanted to be a part, but didn't quite know how. A couple of weeks later I received a call from one of their recruiters and quickly we found a place for me. The physical therapist in Papua New Guinea was leaving in September and they needed someone to take her place. As I prayed through this opportunity God showed me so clearly in His Word,specifically Isaiah 55:5, this was His plan for me.
I began to work towards going to Papua New Guinea. As excited as I was and even with the verse God had shown me, I couldn't understand why God wanted me in another country when I felt so much my place was in the United States. About 2 weeks later I was visiting with one of patients from 7E who is a doctor. We talked about massages and she shared with me about St Jude's recent study of children's caregivers receiving massages and how those specific children responded better to treatment and improved more quickly. It was like a light went off. I was to take my talents as a massage therapist to the missionaries so that they would have more energy, strength, and endurance to take the Word of God the nations who did not have His Word at all, the "sin-sick", if you will. I looked back on each of my out of the country mission trips and the one thing that brought me such joy and seemed insignificant at the time was the opportunities to give the missionaries and my team members massages. God has clearly shown me in these last few months, I am an encourager, and through massage and other ways that is my place as His child, to encourage the tired, sick, the heavy laden and God is using me to help provide rest. This has been an amazing journey so far and I look forward to sharing more with you. A song just popped in my head (i Know surprise surprise)it's like God is telling me You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet,Bbbaby, you ain't seen nothin yet...
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