3 Days

There are only three days left in the school year until I am done with my first year of nursing school and I have no idea what the next year is going to look like. Although, I do know that it will look like what God has in mind - because I got nothin'! The best part is, I am completely fine with not knowing. I have a back-up plan. What I do know is that this year has been challenging, growing, difficult, purposeful, encouraging, fulfilling, and just downright wonderful! So many adventures that I wish I could write out now. But, with those final three days of school come more than three days worth of homework that needs to be done. 

Values

Sitting in a coffee shop, I overhear a man say, "I told her to just terminate now."

He was talking about life.

He was referring to his daughter and how she is so young and pregnant. I just can not believe it! Let's address my folly to be fair - I should not have been eavesdropping. End of story. He has the freedom and ability to feel how he feels and express what he expresses and I should not be judging. However, I just realized the state of our world!

Since when is it okay to tell YOUR baby what she should do with HER baby?! Let alone, to tell her that she should kill her baby. Wow. It saddens me to know that people feel that life should be ended just because of how young someone is. Granted, a girl may be ill-prepared to take care of a child at a young age, but nevertheless, it is life. Precious, God-given life. There is no telling how that baby's life will turn out, but it is fair to say that the child will, in the least, have life!

My heart breaks over the fact that this baby will enter life with the reality that someone wanted it dead. Wow.

Values - what are they?
And, where does the reality of life take importance?

Blessed Assurance

In nursing school, they preach the whole idea of "prevention." Rather than cure someone, just help them to not acquire any diseases. Well, as made evident by society, disease is inevitable. And, until today, I was just another non-compliant human.

Despite multiple suggestions from my sister to go to the ophthalmologist, I have not gone. Until today.

He was kind enough to numb my eyeballs, expose them to the world via dilation, shine an extremely bright light in them, and then proceed to tell me that my optic nerves are "pink and happy." This all sounds so pleasant. Then, came the verdict I was hoping he was going to rule out for me.

"Because of the fact that you are 20, a woman, and presenting with all of these symptoms, I can't rule out MS. You can have MS without optic neuritis - which you don't have. So, I can't say for sure. You need to see a neurologist who will do some tests, and if those come up inconclusive, then you can go in a big machine that will take pictures of your brain. So, it's either too much stress and your body is revolting, or MS."

Well...this all seems so sudden. Perhaps I fell over once. And yes, my eyes are blurry. And I will even admit to my hands feeling like they are on fire. I will even admit to a headache everyday. But MS? No.

I am doing my best to not dwell on the "what-ifs" of this situation. I simply say that the doctor is trying to "rule out MS." Because, as far as I am concerned, these strange things are not MS. I just have a rebellious body. 

Prayer. That's all I've got to keep me calm. 

Blessed Assurance

This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
  Praising my Savior all the day long.

Body

I've held sleeping babies
I've held crying women
I've held the hurting addict
I've held the pen to paper
I've held the hands of my love
I've held my nephews
I've held my terrified sister after a fire
I've held the door for strangers
I've held my makeup brush
I've held cameras making memories
I've held tear-stained letters
I've held the cell phone - always a distraction
I've held anger inside
I've held hurt in my eyes
I've held fear and sorrow where no one can find
I've held stress on my brow
I've held frustration
I've held my Bible
I've held a microphone
I've held on to a podium for dear life
I've held hospital gowns
I've held stethoscopes
I've held someone's medication
I've held thoughts dear to me
I've held responsibilities
I've held a broken arm
I've held on to past sorrows
I've held on to guilt
I've held on to pride
I've held on to hope
I've held on to joy
I've held on to friends
I've held weights
I've held the weight of the world - or so I thought
I've held decisions
I've held secrets
I've held my tongue
I've held food
I've held onto the fact that even though I feel like I've held onto so much, God is always holding onto me.

I'm Ready

Where is my heart?

Is my mind focused on You?

You hold my world.

You gave me life.

You give my freedom.

Mercy pours out of your wounds.

Your blood covers my multitude of sins.

If I took the time to appreciate that,

my heart would be in better shape.

I miss hearing your voice.

I miss feeling your presence.

I know you never leave.

I think I got distracted.

Would you be willing to take me back?

You always are!

What joy!

You know my frustrations. 

You hold my tongue.

I will never be able to thank you enough for that.

Guide my steps.

Fill my thoughts.

Use my words.

Teach my hands.

Mold my heart.

Here I am Lord,

I'm vulnerable.

I'm ready. 

I just want more of You.

Just Meeting the Requirements

I just wrote this for a class and I felt the need to post it on here. That's it :)

Section I: Where I Come From

                I was born in Salem, Oregon in the year 1992. Linda May Culton, Paul Chadwick Culton are my older, all-be-it, determined parents. My mother was 42 when she had me, so to be certain, I am the youngest child. I have two siblings, a 42-year-old brother and a 35-year-old sister. Over the past twenty years, I have told countless people my sibling’s ages and the response is always the same; disbelief. Yet, this is where the story really begins. My mother fell in love with an Army man at the young age of 16. After being engaged for two years while her brave soldier fought for freedom in Vietnam, they were wed on his five day R and R in Hawaii. Soon after, he returned from war and she was pregnant with my brother, Patrick. He was born when my mother was almost 20. Having the desire for another child, my mother and Tony tried to conceive. After no success, my mother’s outlook was grim. Then, my mother’s cousin found out she was pregnant, yet she could not care for the child. Having called my mother – which in itself was an answer to my mother’s prayers – she flew out to California to give birth to the blessed child. Rebekah was adopted by my mother Linda and her husband Tony within 24 hours of her birth. Following that blessing, my mother had 4 miscarriages with Tony. This is the part of the story where my future begins to unfold.

            Tony passed away due to being sprayed with Agent Orange while in Vietnam. They had a year together after his diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. So, to summarize, my mother had four miscarriages, her husband passed away, leaving her with two children; one 18, the other 11. My mother married my father one year later. They wed, and once again, my mother began the conception process. With two miscarriages, her outlook again was grim. Until my birth, my mother had had six miscarriages. Then, she was done trying, and had three beautiful children.

            My father, mother, sister, and I lived in Salem, Oregon for three years. Two years in an old Victorian house and one year in an apartment; the moving had begun. We moved to eastern Oregon to be missionaries to migrant workers. My father speaks Spanish fluently so he was able to communicate and my mother and I tried our best. We did that until I was four when my parents decided to leave the ministry to be interim pastors at a quaint little Baptist church in Owyhee, Oregon. Move number three. Following our stent at Owyhee, we moved to Nyssa, Oregon where we kept our roots for 3 years before moving to Oravada, Nevada for 6 months to once again do missions work. Move number four. Our fifth move took us back to Nyssa, until our sixth move took us to the western part of Oregon. We moved into a duplex in Canby, Oregon where my mother continued homeschooling me. Then, we didn’t have a home; just a storage unit. We lived with our pastor for 6 months – move number seven – and then did missions for 3 months in Cove, Oregon – mover number eight – before being able to buy a trailer home in a trailer community in Aurora, Oregon – move number nine. When all seemed calm, we moved to California for 6 months while my father worked with his brother. Move number ten. Our eleventh move was back to the trailer where I went finished my secondary education in the local school district, and where my parents still reside and have lived for the past 9 years. To say that change is a common part of my life would be an understatement. 

            Through all of the moves that I experienced, my parents were loyal through and through. My father had a multitude of odd-jobs, obviously giving us cause for all of those moves. The most influential role my father has played in my life is teaching me to be confident in who I am and to not be easily embarrassed. He did this unintentionally. I learned a lot of these characteristics throughout my life after my father was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) when I was 5. This is a neurological disorder under the Autism spectrum. The most common symptom of this syndrome is being socially awkward or inept. Over the past 15 years of learning about AS and living with a father with AS, being comfortable in socially uncomfortable situations has become a specialty of mine. As far as my mother is concerned, she taught me to be flexible; a value I will never take for granted. My mother would always say, “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken;” a mantra she borrowed from her pastor. The other value I learned from my mother is love. To give love and to be loved is one of the most precious gifts people share and should be treasured as such. She also taught me cleanliness, but that is a value I am still learning to appreciate.

            All of our moves introduced me to a multitude of people; positively influential people and negative situations that turned into positive influences. One such person was Kris Ward, my Sunday school teacher when I was 4 and the grandmother of my best friend at the time. I would go over to her house all of the time and she would just love me and treat me as her own daughter. Kris was able to lower the amount of brat I gave off and raise the humble and gentile side of me that had been hidden away. She treated me well and encouraged me with the love of God. This woman helped me to lay a solid foundation which was shaken when I was a sophomore in high school.

            My first ever boyfriend, Zach, told me after three months of “dating,” that he was gay and there was nothing I could do about it. This moment was when my values of love and flexibility were questioned. How could I love someone who shook my world so much and introduced me to worldly pain? Yet, when I told him I did not agree with his choice, yet I still loved him as a person, he threatened me by saying, “You only think it’s wrong because your parents do.” My faith became my own when I responded, “No Zach, God blatantly says that what you have chosen is a sin, and that is why I believe what I do. I love you as a person, but I hate your sin.” Since that time, I have been living my faith, and not merely standing on the morals that my parents hold to.

            Another value I hold is to appreciate life. This is important to me because, a common occurrence in my life has been death. I have been to 7 funerals, all of people whom I loved. Yet, the most influential death in my life thus far was the death of my four-year-old cousin, Braydon Douglas Taylor. I have written countless papers about how much Braydon’s death impacted my life, but with regards to this paper, I will look at the aspect of nursing. Braydon was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma, with is a fancy way of saying he had cancer in his cerebellum, at the age of three. We – my rather large family – celebrated his fourth birthday at the hospital and a week and a half later, he passed away. The reason Braydon’s death caused me to realize that I was supposed to be a nurse all hinged on one interaction with Braydon’s nurse.

            I was singing “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” to my comatose cousin when she walked in. I was by myself, and, assuming that she would want me to be quiet, I stopped singing. However, she surprised me by saying, “No! Keep singing! Hearing is the last thing to go. I know he can hear you.” So, I sang. He didn’t move. And I wept. That was my freshman year of high school, and since then, I have known I was to go to school to become a nurse. However, finances were not something I had thought to account for. One of the odd-jobs my father had was teaching English as a Second Language to fifth graders. During 2001, my father lost his teaching job, and has been unemployed since that time. My mother works full time, yet with an income of about $38,000 a year, it is safe to say that my family would be in the “upper-lower class” bracket as far as economics are concerned and that number is not promising when looking to come to Northwest University. But, as He has proved time and time again, God is good to provide. The same day that I went to register for classes at a community college in Oregon, my uncle called and told me that whatever I couldn’t afford to go to Northwest, he would pay for. And now, here I am.

Section II: Who I Am

            I have always enjoyed school. I love to learn and I actually enjoy doing homework – most of the time. God has just been so faithful to me to bring people into my life who have encouraged me to follow my heart and do what He has called me to do; which is to love others for his glory and in his name. Once I was accepted in to Northwest University, I was instantly nervous. Had high school really prepared me for college? Would my little Podunk education from Farmville, U.S.A. give me the tools to be successful at a private university? Well, as most Christians learn, it is in our weakest moments that God proves himself strong and mighty. And usually, his plan is way better than our own.

            My freshman year of college, I considered changing my major to education because I didn’t think I was really cut out to be a nurse. This doubt came almost exactly four years after Braydon’s death. And not only was it doubt, it was fear. I was scared that I was going to fail. I was nervous that my uncle’s investment would be a failure. I was worried about letting all of the people who had poured love into me down. My obstacle was no longer finances, nor was it opportunity, it was me.

            After much prayer and petition, I knew that I was supposed to be a nurse and that was just how it was going to be. I also knew that missionary work was of high priority to me. In actuality, missions was the other deciding factor aside from Braydon’s death for my becoming a nurse. I wanted to be an undercover missionary if you will. I wanted to spread God’s word in countries where God’s word was forbidden. And more than that, I wanted a way to be able to “go into the entire world” (Mark 16:15).  Nursing was that opportunity. All doubts, fears, worries, anxieties, and nervousness aside, nursing was it; my calling, my future, and now, my present.

            The values that I have acquired over the past twenty years have just solidified my calling to be a nurse. Nursing offers the ability to love someone despite any afflictions they may have. To offer them the best possible care and to give it to them as if their lives depended on it; which, it does. I love to give love. To be held in someone’s eyes as a source of Christ. I am not a “fixer” of broken people. I am merely a tool that God is able to use to mend. I’ve tried to fix people; Zach was the first person I tried to fix. That fell apart. I am just a tool that can be used to implement a feeling of love and care into someone’s life who may have never felt loved or cared about. Sure, I have had friends call me “mom” and friends laugh at my desire to help when someone has a cut. But, that’s not what nursing is about for me. Of course, help people. But, in doing so, I hope to be able to relay love. That is my main objective.

            Having experienced so much death was another deciding factor to pursue nursing as a life-long career. Death has a way of morphing who we are. My grandfather’s death was felt in a different way than the death of my nine-year-old friend killed in a car accident. However, both deaths changed my outlook. I can remember as a child thinking about how death was just so foreign. Why would that happen? What happens? Questions often plagued my mind as to why Tony died. Why would a middle-aged man die and as a consequence, I would be brought into this world? I often feared that my sister would be embittered at the thought that her dad had to die so that I could have life. But, as said, death morphs who we are; either for the better or the worse.

            To me, death is as much a part of life as breathing is. We can’t do anything without it, yet it is something that is completely taken for granted. Rather, life is taken for granted and death projects that truth. I felt that having had experience with death would help me in the nursing world. By no means am I saying death is comfortable for me. Nor is it something I look forward to. It takes its toll every time. Pain comes whether or not I want it to and without fail, the same questions are asked. Why did this happen? How could this happen? What will happen now? They all plague my mind. Yet, death is s common occurrence in the medical world and being able to somewhat comprehend death is crucial to knowing how to cope.

            Generally, I am a very easy-going person. I love people. I love helping. I love loving. I get frustrated, I break down now and then, and I often question where I am going. I love my family. I appreciate small things. Yet, in the same breath, small things are often what frustrate me the most. I try not to dwell on unimportant offenses, but I do. It’s something I feel I will always be working on improving. I know the love of God and that His love ought to be the love that I reflect. I know that I am not perfect, nor do I aspire to be.

            I have been dating Noah Irish for two years on October 14, 2012 and I could not be happier about that. I have three nephews who are some of my best friends. I have a best friend in Oregon, and several in Washington. I love to travel and I hope to do so throughout my nursing career. Having older parents has shaped my outlook on life. They are part of the “Baby Boomer” group and their values hold true to the generic outlook of people their age. They taught me hard work, respect, fairness, honesty, and quality. There are so many other facets to my life, some of which I am still learning to appreciate. But, they all make up me. The above lists of who I am are just a piece of me. Not all. I am still learning who I am and nursing is a big part of that. 

The First Installment of "New Beginnings"

Introduction

I was born in Salem, Oregon in the year 1992. Linda May Culton, Paul Chadwick Culton are my older, all-be-it, determined parents. My mother was 42 when she had me, so to be certain, I am the youngest child. I have two siblings, a 42-year-old brother and a 35-year-old sister. Over the past twenty years, I have told countless people my sibling’s ages and the response is always the same; disbelief. Yet, the reason for the extensive gap in ages is simply part of my story; rather, my mother’s story is what brings my beginning. My mother fell in love with an Army man at the young age of 16. After being engaged for two years while her brave soldier fought for freedom in Vietnam, they were wed on his five day R and R in Hawaii. Soon after, he returned from war and she was pregnant with my brother, Patrick. He was born when my mother was almost 20. Being the wonderful motherly type that she is, my mother knew that she wanted to have more children – nine to be exact. Yet, the Lord had different plans. My mother’s cousin found out she was pregnant, yet she could not care for the child. Having called my mother – which in itself was an answer to my mother’s prayers – she flew out to California to give birth to the blessed child. Rebekah was adopted by my mother Linda and her husband Tony within 24 hours of her birth. Following that blessing, my mother had 4 miscarriages with Tony. And then, her story changed. Tony passed away due to being sprayed with Agent Orange while in Vietnam. They had a year together after his diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He loved his children and wife and enjoyed his time with them before he went home to be with his Father at the age of 41. Rebekah was 11, Patrick 19, and my mother 38. One year later, my mother fell in love with my father. However, it should be noted that her grieving is not to be ignored. She remained a good mother as well as a wonderful provider for her two fatherless children. Yet, my father was in the picture none the less. After they were wed, they moved from California to Oregon; where I was born. My mother struggled with 2 more miscarriages. This is where my story begins to form. After her 6 miscarriages, my mother found out that she was yet again pregnant. Her hope for the life of this child was dismal at best. However, after 9 months, she was still pregnant and in full term. I was born October 10^th, 1992 to two proud and astonished parents. My father would say, “You had an umbrella head that just opened up after you came out.” This too, is part of my story. To say that being the seventh conception had never seemed a truly blessed part of my story until this past year. After telling a friend of mine a short version of my testimony, he quickly pointed out to me that the number 7 is the number of completion and perfection; God’s number. To have someone say to you that you are completion is life changing. I often think about how my mother wanted to have 9 children, yet had only three. But, if the miscarriages are counted as they should be, she did have 9 children. However, the other six have been blessed to dwell with the Lord in heaven for the past 30+ years and when we all finally go to be with our Father, the reunion will be one of memorable proportions. I have always desired to write a memoir of my life. I have never had the fluency or true ability to until now. And as unimportant as my life may be in the grand scheme of things in this world, I am a child of God and I will never be marked as unimportant in His eyes; which is why these words are now being written. To the skeptics, there is no true purpose behind these hundreds of words. I suppose they could be called, “A New Reality” or perhaps just a young woman writing out her feelings. But, regardless, this is my life and if I am to be a part of this world, and we are supposed to all be connected, then who am I to withhold my story from anyone? So, this is where we will begin; where the stories that I have always been told begin; our first house on Church Street in Salem, Oregon.