Our Savior

Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness.
Open my eyes; let me see.
Beauty that makes this heart adore you, hope of a life spent with You.

King of all days, oh so highly exalted, glorious in heaven above.
Humbly You came to the earth You created.
All for love's sake became poor.

I'll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon that cross.

-author unknown (to me)

I feel like when we take communion, we should be thinking about everything He did for us, not just the climax of what He did for us. He was in heaven, exalted on high. And then He came down here, making Himself susceptible to pain, suffering, sin, disease, illness, evil, and temptation. It wasn't a walk in the park. We are saved not just because He sacrificed His life that day, but because He sacrificed His life everyday. He was a living sacrifice. He was completely submitted to the Father to be used to get the job done. He was faithful everyday, even to the point of death..."even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:8).

Smudge

I think my cat is dead. No one has seen him in about a week. He is primarily an outside cat. But he always hangs around the house and every so often comes in the garage where his food is. We definitely see him every day. I'm pretty sure something got him. It makes me sad because he was such a special cat. He is the reason I like cats. Really it was easy to love him. I was never good at picking up and holding cats and so they would never let me hold them. But he doesn't care how you pick him up. He is so affectionate. What I love most about him is that he was always content no matter what. He never got jealous if there was another pet around. But he loved attention.

When he used to sleep in my bed with me, he would always crack me up...if I was lying on my stomach, he would lay longways on my back...if I was on my side, he would spoon with me with his head on the pillow. And during the day, his favorite place to sleep was the bathroom sink.

Smudge was a beast. He did have a stomach that swung rather low to the ground but other than that, he was muscle. I've seen him jump up in the air and catch a bird. He's always bringing me random body parts of what he's just killed (usually the intestines and half of the skull).

If you were outside, he would come to you. He loved people. Though, I have to say, we didn't give him too much attention. But he's stuck around for the last 7 years. I'm not sure how old he is (was). He was full grown when we found him. One day Neil and I were driving down the road in our neighborhood and Neil had to slam on his brakes to not hit him. That's how he got his name--he was almost a "smudge" on the road. Anyway, once the truck was stopped, Smudge walked over to the driver door, Neil opened it, and he jumped up on Neil's lap. So then we took him home. That's right, we might have stolen him from one of our neighbors. But hey, there was no collar on him and he was not de-clawed. Plus there are always strays around our neighborhood, with all the woods and everything. My brother once found a litter of kittens in a tree in our back woods. One of them fell out of the tree at that moment and my brother's friend caught it--called him Lucky. Anyway, if there was no collar then he was not claimed, so I guess that's how I rationalized it all these years. Also he was always free to go back down the road where we found him if he wanted.

So maybe that's where he is. But I'm pretty sure he's dead. There's coyotes, racoons, wild turkeys (with claws), possums--anything could have gotten him. I just hope it was a quick death with no suffering. Oh, I love(d) that cat. Who knows, maybe he's still out there and will be back soon. But lets be realistic--that's probably not the case.

Neil, don't make fun of me for writing a blog about an animal.

The Walk

He is right--I have to admit it. I don't look for opportunities to help others. After work, it's "Stacy Time." Time to kick back and relax. Now let me just say that I don't think there's anything wrong with relaxing every once in a while. But every night? All night after work? Now that's a bit much. I really am a lazy, selfish b@$ch. No, really. What I need to think about is what Jesus would do in this situation. I'm sure His nights didn't consist of "Jesus Time," but instead, time spent ministering to others or with His Father in prayer.

And all this talk about what "church" is, I want to do it. Every day throughout the week. I'm glad we're getting a women's Bible study going. Fellowship is something I crave. And I love studying the Word with others. Oh I can't wait!

Patients are People...Duh!!!

Ok, I am not the perfect employee who has perfect work ethics. But this is ridiculous. I am so disgusted with certain health care workers. When I worked in a hospital and now in a nursing home, the number one complaint from all the patients always is that no one comes to help them when they hit the call button for the nurse. And it's like that everywhere. I know they're busy. But 50% of the time I see those damn aides they are sitting on their butts gossiping about the latest crap going on while their patients are in need of help. I found out from a recent patient of mine that there is this "15 minute" rule where the nurses or aides have to answer the call button within that time. They get monitored apparently. Anyway, he told me that within 15 minutes of hitting his button, someone does come to his room but all they do is turn off the call light, walk out, and say someone will be in later to take care of his request. And then no one comes in to take care of his request. Or it gets taken care of hours later. I've talked to the Nursing Supervisor about this...nothing has changed.

Today I walked into one of my patient's rooms to work with him. His name is Leroy; he's a very soft spoken, polite gentleman, who doesn't like to complain. I walked in at 4:00 pm. He told me that he had been hitting his call button for the last 6 or 7 hours and NO ONE came to see what he needed. Unfortunately this man had been sitting there that entire time with poop in his pants. So I took him to the bathroom and cleaned him up. And you know what? It took me about 5 minutes to do it. That's all he wanted, was a few minutes of someone's time to clean him up. For just once I'd like those damn nurses and aides to put themselves in the shoes of one of those patients. THOSE PATIENTS ARE REAL PEOPLE. They have feelings and needs and deserve a pleasant stay while they are trying to get better. In school it was always emphasized to us that we should treat our patients as if they were a mother or father or grandmother or grandfather of ours. Those nurses and especially the aides don't even treat them like human beings half the time!

Now I have to be fair--there are some very good nurses and nurses aides. But they are scarce. Very scarce. It's so sad.

What if a patient is having trouble breathing and they hit the call button and no one answers it for 45 minutes? They could be dead! What if someone needs to go to the bathroom but were told to not get up by themselves, but to hit the call button instead, and no one shows up for a half an hour? Well either they have an accident in their pants or they get up by themselves and fall and break a hip. (The latter happens way too often.)

This is a huge issue. What do we do about it? And again, it's happening everywhere from what I have heard from healthcare workers and patients that have been in other facilities.

I'm just so disgusted with it.