Ezekiel 36:26-27, 29-39
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws...I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and crops of the field so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine.
A year changes everything...
A year ago I was finishing school to become a nurse, I was working full time at a job that I thought I enjoyed, and was married to my best friend and someone I trusted wholeheartedly. I had a beautiful home and a beautiful family. We were all healthy, and things were great.
I was starting an Internship at the Women’s Center to follow a Breast Health Navigator. I was interested in seeing the social work aspect of nursing, and how we as nurses can be nurturing to those in their time of need and pain. I was intrigued by the thought of working in Women’s Health, and I wanted to see a different aspect of nursing besides bedside nursing. Everything was great, but a year changes everything…
My husband left me in April of 2011, without saying much and without looking back. I had no answers to my questions of “Why?” and “What could I have done differently?” I was in pain, I found the darkest places comforting, because it understood my pain. I was saddened, depressed, angry, frustrated, fatigued, and apathetic. I felt as though there was no worth left in living, and that my world had fallen apart.
With an incredible amount of beautiful women in my life, I worked past these normal feelings of loss and grief. To say that this was a quick fix, is a lie. To say that I didn’t have moments where I regressed to anger and depression, is a lie. To say I ran that race by myself is also a lie. There were women at my internship that were stronger than I could ever even imagine being. There were women at my church that were strong because they had suffered similarly to me. There were other girls graduating from nursing school that were suffering because of broken relationships and heartache. There were women in my own family that had suffered unwanted pain. My own mother, a breast cancer survivor, ovarian cancer survivor, skin cancer survivor, and a woman overcoming a complicated, multi-surgical brain tumor survivor was there, demonstrating strength and the willpower to just fight it. These are the women that we should be using as role models to demonstrate overcoming severe grief and pain, to be able to look back one day and say, “I fought that, and I WON.”
Four weeks after my husband left, I graduated from Nursing School. I remember each test, each assignment, and each deadline in that last month, because I fought every evil, dark thing to make it to graduation. It was the strong women that had suffered pain before and our wonderful, all sufficient God that carried me through to graduation. I walked across that stage to get pinned, tear streaked eyes, blurry and stinging with emotions. My professor whispered, “I’m so proud of you, you ARE going to do great things. You will make a great nurse.”
That summer, I tried my hardest to reconcile and to find God in the midst of the pain, confusion, and heartbreak. I had big shoes to fill that summer. As a Jr. High Youth Director, I was directing a youth mission trip in Brooklyn, New York, and chaperoning another youth mission trip in Indianapolis, Indiana. My position at the church was up in the air due to my pending divorce. There were many questions about my faith and my ability to lead youth when my own life was such chaos. At the same time I was studying for my Nursing Council Licensure Examination to become licensed as a Registered Nurse, and I was adjusting to living by myself, all while sorting through the pain and grief of losing a husband, best friend, and companion. The pain, confusion, fatigue, and exhaustion were unbelievable, and completely indescribable to someone who has not experienced such grief.
I lost what I thought was my world in April 2011, I quit my job at Rosetta Stone a few weeks later, started as a Registered Nurse Applicant, RNA, in May 2011, became licensed in July 2011, continued my work as a Director of Youth Ministries in August 2011, and continued my quest for education by starting in the Masters of Nursing Program at James Madison University in September 2011. There was no time to stop and be angry with God. There was no time to stop and think that my life wasn’t worth living. I had been given the opportunity to fight and to fight hard. I fought for myself for the first time. I fought to find peace and serenity without having to know all the answers, without having to have my question of, “why?” answered.
During this time, I started a photo blog. The blog was simply a way for me to vent, to escape into a realm of artistry. I was never a writer by trade or a photographer by trade, but these two hobbies grew into a passion. I carried a camera with me everywhere, documenting the grief and the pain, but also the beauty and joy that resulted from that pain. I took pictures of things that were happy and sad, things that were funny and ridiculous. I chose one picture each day to write about. I wrote about how I overcame pain that day, and how I grew that day. Sometimes I wrote about ways I didn’t understand, and ways that I wish I could understand. I challenged my faith, my love of family, and the decisions I made every day. I shared this blog with family and friends so that they could still be near me and know me, without having to physically be beside me.
A year changes everything…
I now work as an RN. I am so content with the way things are, and could not be happier. Things are unfolding beautifully in their own time, and I have such a great group of co-works to support and continue to help me grow each day. But I remind myself daily that the beauty I have found and the peace I have obtained has not been without first suffering through a great and unexpected loss, and working day by day, moment by moment through the grief that was left behind.
