That’s My Boy! August 1, 2008

Seth pretending to be Erkel

Seth has his own blog which he updated quite a bit today.  I think it’s a great idea.  It teaches great journaling skills.  Life is never dull with this kid.  I wish I had more patience and understanding.  He’s such a smart kid.  I’m glad there are people in his life that were probably just like him when they were young.  Of one of his adult friends he said, “Wow, Matt, I bet you were as smart as me when you were my age!”  At least he has a healthy self-esteem!  Check out his blog at www.smhelms.wordpress.com make sure to leave some comments!

Kindness July 28, 2008

I am a nurse.  What comes to your mind when you hear that word?  Nurse.  Caring, kind, compassionate, empathetic, selfless?  Most people would describe us using those terms.  Over the past couple of months I have been stuggling with fulfilling that ideal.  How can I have empathy when I see the same people week after week come in with drug overdoses or abscesses from popping heroin?  Or the “entitled” crowd who feel we owe them pain medication and a hot meal after calling 911 for a sore throat, then want us to courtesy fill their antibiotic prescription and taxi them home and then get angry an belligerant when we say no to any of the above?  Or the moms who say they can’t afford the $4 antibiotic at Wal-Mart for their kids, but smoke 2 packs a day?  Or the chronic asthma patient that won’t buy inhalers, but comes into emergency to get a nebulizer treatment and then calles us incompetent when we take too long because she wants to go smoke?  As a nurses we are screamed at, spit on, hit, manipulated, lied to, and called names, all by the people we are supossed to love and be kind to. 

I have always prayed before work.  I pray for my patients I will have during the day.  I pray for myself and the doctors who will see them.  I pray that I will be able to treat each person as I would treat Jesus himself.  The struggle I am having is that I am finding it more and more difficult to see these people through Christ’s eyes.  I am being hardend by repetition.  I look at a young prostitue with missing teeth and scabs all over her face who is sleeping off a meth high and have a hard time seeing the beautiful soul and potential that Jesus sees in her.  It’s hard for me to link someone in crisis with someone who has been there and overcome.

As I was singing in church and struggling with this, a phrase from the song we were singing popped out and struck me.

“It’s your kindness Lord, that leads us to repentance”

Wow.  My eyes were opened.  Being a nurse instantly held new meaning to me.  I have Christ living in me.  Therefore, wherever I go and whatever I do, Jesus is there.  I am his representative.  I am to represent what he would do if he were in physical form here on Earth.  Every time I go into a room and treat a patient as lost, undesirable, and hopeless, I am not sharing Christ.  I am not representing him.  But when I treat them with kindness; as a beautiful child of God in need of a savior, I AM representing Christ.  I am providing hope.  I am providing ”kindness that leads to repentance” and change. The Bible says,

“You may think you can condem such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse!  When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. . . Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? . . Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” Romans 2:1-4 NLT 

So, I will probably not see the results of my kindness, but I can know that as I am representing Christ, I am planting seeds in my patient’s lives.  As I represent Christ, he will live fuller and fuller in me and it will be easier to SEE through his eyes.  Thank-you Jesus, for letting me be your representative to lost and dying people.

Lola’s Fight May 29, 2008

Lights of London “Lola” was born three weeks premature on May 11, 2008 to my mare, Emma.  She was a beautiful little Cleavland Bay/Thoroughbred cross.  She fought for 8 long days in the ICU in Corvallis.  My friend Krista, her owner, made the very difficult decision to euthanize her to ease her painful struggle.  This is a very sad time for her.  I know all who read this will remember her in your prayers.   This picture was taken just hours before she died.  Emma stuck with her the whole time and wouldn’t leave her half-stall the entire 8 days.  This was Emma’s first baby.

New Arrivals May 29, 2008

Camanna’s Velvet Hammer (Velvet) gave birth to twin boys!  The first time momma is doing great.  The delivery went very well.  The whole family got to be there.  It was such a good experience for the kids (human!).  Lily cried because “It is just so beautiful”.  Seth had fun taking pictures of all the bloody parts.   I tasted some of Velvet’s milk.  Yummy!  I just don’t have time or motivation to milk her every single day! 

 

 

 

 

If anyone is interested, they will be for sale around the middle of July.  One is blue-eyed.  Both are polled and both have waddles.  They can be sold as bucks or wethers OR if you want to start your own herd, I’ll sell Camanna’s Americano (below) along with a buck.  They are all registerable.  Send me an e-mail and I can give you more pics and specs.

Animal Therapy April 29, 2008

 

 

 

I found Seth a therapist.  Do you think our insurance will cover it?

Farewell to Buffie February 5, 2008

Buffie

2005-2008

The body of Buffie was found in the early hours of the morning during a routine trip to the barn for the feeding of the animals.  During her lifetime, Buffie provided the Helms family with over 600 eggs, assisted with the spreading of compost, and coached the family dogs in their daily exercise.  Buffie is survived by her coopmates Alex and Charlie.  She will be missed.

About the comments on “Tithing My Time” January 30, 2008

My last post was not intended to be a biblical expose on tithing.  I am very well aware that there are many beliefs on tithing and I was not trying to make anyone else tithe or even make them believe the way I do.  I appreciate the comments, but really they made me feel very ill inside.  I feel that my relationship with the Creator of the Universe and His Son, Jesus is so far beyond the milk that we drink when we debate things such as tithing or baptism or such.  My salvation is assured no matter what I do.  If I tithe or not, I’m 100% positive I will end up with God when I die.  I think Jesus is saddened when we spend so much time worrying about the legalism behind every little ‘and’ or ‘thus’ in the Bible.  Because He paid the price for my sin, I do not have to worry about any of that.  If you don’t believe in tithing, don’t tithe.  It’s between you and God, your salvation does not hinge on that issue.  What God wants us to focus on is our intimate love relationship with HIM, not religion and definitely not theology. 

I look at my relationship with God like my relationship with my husband.  I know without a shadow of a doubt that my husband loves me.  Being married is a given.  I no longer have to try to woo him or make him mine; he already is.  So why would I continually go back to courting and worrying if he likes me and if I said the right thing?  What I should be focused on is developing my relationship with him in a deeper and more intimate way.  Unfortunately, my relationship with my husband needs improvement.  Because I know that he loves me unconditionally, I work on all the other little things in my life that seem so pressing because I know that he will still be there no matter what I do.  This is no way to develop an intimate relationship.  No quality time is spent growing and learning about each other.   

I feel the same about my relationship with God.  If I leave Him until the very last, I am too exhausted and my conversations with him consist of dribble.  Or if I give Him what is left over after I pay my bills, then there just isn’t any left to give.  Just as I don’t want my relationship with my husband to grow cold, I surely don’t want my relationship with God to grow cold.  Does a cold relationship mean that I am no longer a Christian or no longer a wife?  Absolutely not.  Does it mean I am not living my life to the fullest?  You bet!  

I do agree that tithe is a sticky issue.  So-called Christian leaders have definitely exploited the concept.  If someone tithes because they feel guilty, then they are doing it for very wrong reasons and are living under legalism, not freedom through grace.  I do not live under guilt.  When I say that I am robbing God, it is not out of fear that I say it, but out of sadness.  I am robbing God of what is His the same way I rob my husband when I do not actively pursue to know him more, or the way I rob my children if I were to plop my butt in front of a movie and only talk to them on commercials.    I am still a wife and still a mother, just not the best I can be.  I don’t want to be just a Christian, but a friend and lover of God and I will do what I think I need to in order to achieve that.   

Sharing the Sun January 28, 2008

On a very frozen day, the girls found the last patch of sunlight!

Tithing My Time January 28, 2008

Yesterday in Church I heard a really good teaching on Tithe.  When I hear the word “tithe” I think of money; usually of some church asking for it.  But tithing is giving our FIRST-FRUITS.  It is giving the first of everything in faith even though we don’t know what is coming next.  In the Bible, it was the first born animal or child that was given to God.  God required the first of the fruits of the field, even before the storehouses were full for the coming year.  He wanted them to give the first of everything out of faith that He would provide the rest.  The best loved and most well known verse about tithing is found in Malachi 3:8-10.  God says, “You have robbed me.  But you ask, ‘how do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings.  You are under a curse. . . because you are robbing me.  Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. . . Test me in this . . . and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”  Tithing does not mean paying all your bills and then if there is any left over, giving it to God.  It is giving 10% FIRST and then trusting God that there will be enough left over to pay the bills.  

 But money is not the only thing God wants.  As I was listening to the teaching, I realized that there are two things we never have enough of: Money and Time.  In the same way we give what’s left over of our money to God when all the bills are paid, we give what is left over of our time after all of our tasks and chores are complete, and there is usually none left to give!  So, if God requires my  first-fruits, then He requires the first part of my day as well!  I have gone through periods where it is no sacrifice to give my first morning hours to God, but not as a rule.  Usually I go to bed at night and ask God to wake me up when He wants to meet with me.  I know this sounds silly, but it has worked for years.  If I need to start getting ready at 5:30, I will open my eyes at 5:00.  This morning, for example, I asked God to wake me up before it was time to leave and I opened my eyes at 7:00.  I groaned and asked God why He didn’t wake me up, then I saw the snow outside and there is a 2 hour delay for school!  God let me sleep in 2 whole hours!  Anyway, God has been faithful to wake me up when He wants to meet with me, but I am not always faithful to listen.  I have many excuses, most of them sound convincing in the wee hours of the morning.  I suffer from horrible fatigue.  It comes with the whole depression/anxiety package.  It is an unnatural fatigue where I literally can sleep anywhere I happen to be.  So, in the morning when God wakes me up, I tell Him that I need to get my sleep so that I won’t be tired all day.  Then I go back to sleep until my back-up alarm wakes me up.  I get up and feed the animals and try to sit down to hurriedly spend a few minutes with God.  I start thinking of all the things I need to accomplish in the day and it all becomes overwhelming.  I end up spending my precious minutes in self-pity and I end up with a rushed, “Thanks God for the day, bless all the people in my life, I will try to spend time with you tonight, amen.”  Then, I am tired all day anyway, despite the extra hour or two of sleep I stole from God.  I am “robbing God” just like He says in Malachi. 

So, if the same principles of MONEY apply to TIME, which I believe they do, if I am faithful in giving my first-fruits of TIME to Him, then He will “throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that [I] will not have room enough for it!”  He will “prevent pests (fatigue, unexpected circumstances, lack of motivation, etc.) from devouring [my] crops (the rest of my day) and the vines in [my] fields will not cast their fruit (my day will be fruitful)!  Can you imagine having more time in the day than you know what to do with?  But oh how hard it is to get up in the morning!  I guess this is where the sacrifice comes in.  But God asked me to test Him in this, so test Him I will!  I will, in faith, give Him the first part of my day and trust that He will carry me though any circumstances that come my way during the rest of it. 

Living Though Pain December 30, 2007

In Acts 16:16-40, Paul and Silas were wrongly humiliated, severely beaten and then thrown into prison.  Somehow, they found the strength to offer a sacrifice of praise to God.  I can only imagine what I would want to do: curl up into a ball and ask God why He allowed me to fail and why He allowed me to have so much pain. Surely God would not allow me to be beaten if He is a God of love.  Plus, I was doing what He called me to do in the first place.  I would pity myself. 

 Somehow, Paul and Silas praised God.  I don’t believe that God anesthetized their pain.  I believe they suffered through the pain and praised God until the pain became bearable.  That is the challenge we face: living the pain and suffering until it becomes bearable.  When praise is the LAST thing that comes naturally to us and we choose to worship Him anyway, we’ve just had the privilege of offering a genuine sacrifice of praise. 

The pain in my life over the past few years has been depression and anxiety.  God has taught me to praise Him even though that is the very last thing I’ve wanted to do.  I remember sitting on my front porch and telling God that I didn’t believe He could exist because there is no way He could be a loving God and allow me so much despair and anguish.  But, I reached beyond what I felt and did what I knew.  I thanked God for the day even when I couldn’t get out of bed to see it.  I thanked Him for my job even though the thought of going there caused every symptom of a heart attack.  I thanked Him for my children, even though I feared them.  I thanked Him for my husband who was about the only thing I really was thankful for.  I sang to God.  I danced before God.  I  smiled at the world.  In my peer review from work were things like “she is always so happy and brings peace to the department” “she is level headed and does not become overly excited at stressful situations” “she helps us to feel relaxed and happy”.  These all came during my deepest period of anxiety and depression!  When my husband had to drive me to work because I was afraid to drive, when I would spend my lunch hour hidden in an unused room crying, when each time I entered a patient’s room my heart would feel as if it were bursting through my chest.  This is not faking peace or happiness, this is grabbing a hold of what you can’t feel, but knowis there.  It is the evidence of things unseen.  It is FAITH that God is there and that He loves you.  The change in my life was not instantaneous.  God did not see a child struggling and drop a flash of joy down into my life.  Slowly I crawled out of my pit of hell and I can now FEEL God again.  But when I begin to notice the signs of depression or dispair or when my heart starts to pound and I feel like running away, I stop and immediately thank God for His goodness.  I KNOW that I will survive.  I may again decend into that deep dark pit of dispair, but even though I may not feel God’s presence, I will praise Him and know He is there.  I will continue to offer my sacrifice of praise to Him.