I do my best. We do our best as parents. My husband has been
overwhelmingly supportive every step of the way. I’m proud of him. The many big
important life-decisions we have made over the past several years we hope are
shaping her up to be the young lady we long to see and most importantly, what
God longs to see. We enrolled her into Sacred Heart Catholic School here in
Patterson and it has been a wonderful journey. Although there have been some downs
such as bullying, facing the mean-girls at school trying to mess with her
self-confidence and self-esteem—Jewelene got through it and we overcame it
together as a family. So far, at 13 years old (a teenager), I feel that Jewelene
has great self-confidence with high self-esteem. She gets pretty excited about
attending youth group activities at our new church called New Life Christian
Center. She loves making new friends and sharing God stories with them. We
recently transitioned into a different church in town and left our other family
at Adventure Christian Church. We are all doing well as a family and as
individuals in this difficult transition. We are embracing what God has to
offer and doing our best to be servants of His. We were with Adventure for a
good 4-5 years and leaving was one of the hardest things to do in life. But,
God heals and recovers.
Back to my doubts as a mom, sometimes I question whether I
focus too much on my other job as a nurse. Over the last 10 years of being a
nurse, I have been faced with many new opportunities: from being a nursing
supervisor at a skilled nursing facility to being the assistant director of
nursing services there. Then I went on to working in the hospital as an acute
care nurse. It became boring to me and so, I decided to pick up a whole new
specialty as a nurse in the operating room. I remember the day vividly when I
went into the director of surgical services office asking Sandy Mayer for a job
in her department. I got the job. Within 2.5 months I was trained to circulate. A few months later, I was offered another job in the department to scrub open heart
surgeries. The calls were rough—I’d be on call 7 days at a time every 3rd
week rotating with two other open heart scrub nurses. In the meantime, I was
going to school to attain a Bachelor’s degree in nursing. It got to be pretty
demanding trying to juggle raising a little daughter with my husband, working
overtime, and going to school. Then God, saw all this and blessed me with a
surgery center position where the hours were just what I needed (no calls, no
weekends, no holidays). I was able to achieve my Bachelor’s degree goal and
graduated from Grand Canyon University. Then, back to the hospital again, this
time a Level 2 trauma center in the OR. Two years later, I was promoted to
become a clinical coordinator for surgery covering several surgical service
lines. This is where I currently leave off. Am I exhausted? Yes, absolutely! In
fact, I think I am about 2 years into sleep deprivation. I can sleep in and
take many naps all day long if I had the luxury to do so. Am I fulfilled?
Maybe. These are many accomplishments and achievements in which I had never
planned in my wildest dreams. Did God plan for all this to happen? No doubt
about it!
Now, as I sit here on my day off and ponder my life as a
mother after dropping off “Oh deer!” at school on Halloween morning—I wonder if
I am doing all I can for little miss Jewelene. Sure, there’ll be times when she’ll
be faced with trials and tribulations of many kinds and I will want to save her
and do whatever I can to prevent all that from happening. But, then I wouldn’t
be doing her any favor. James reminds us why Christians and human beings in
general face trials and tribulations. James, a servant of God and of the Lord
Jesus Christ spoke to the 12 tribes scattered among the nations, “Consider it
pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let
perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not
lacking anything.” (NIV, James 1:1-4) We can turn our hardships into times of learning,
growing, and maturing. This is what we’ve been trying to encourage Jewelene
with when she comes home and shares with us her challenging day(s). It doesn’t
happen too often but it happens nonetheless. We would give her pointers and
tips on how she should handle the situation in the future. There are times when
we need to intervene as parents because there are certain things that are out
of a teenager’s control. For instance, I reached out to one of the moms at the
school to inform her that her daughter was not treating Jewelene kindly. We (as
in the 2 moms and 2 daughters) met up for coffee the immediate Saturday morning
to discuss the whys and how to resolve the issue. Two months later, things have
improved between the two girls. They’re not best friends or anything close to
it. But, the poor treatment towards Jewelene has subsided substantially. And,
we always check in with her on a regular basis asking how that relationship is
coming along. It has been uneventful on that regard.
Things don’t come easy and problems just do not go away if
unaddressed. We can continue to wonder why God gives us sufferings, not only to
adults but to children and teenagers, also. We must overcome hardships in order
for His promises to get fulfilled. Some of those promises include greater hope
and faith in Him along with an even greater confidence about the future. The
problems that we face on a daily basis will develop our perseverance—which in
turn will strengthen our character and deepen our trust in God. Just as Paul
stated it clearly on peace and hope, “Therefore, since we have been justified
through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through
whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And
we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our
sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance,
character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s
love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given
to us.” (NIV, Romans 5:1-5) Beautifully stated right? Hopeful? Very much so!
This is the scripture I stand on when I have doubts and fears and am faced with
challenges at work and at home.
Reminder: being a mom to a teenager in the 21st
century is no easy task, especially with technology becoming more and more
innovative. I just know in my heart that God gives me struggles because out of
them—something certain is being produced. One certainty is my greater trust in
God—trusting that He will carry me through and help me overcome my challenging
days. Yes, as a mom and a nurse! My patience is being tested every day in some
way. Some days I want to take my surgical cap off and call it quits. But, I am
no quitter because God never quit on me nor will He ever. And, then there are
certain days when I just want to go into the room and shut the world out
because my teenager is too much to bear—with the attitude and the talking back.
But, then I don’t. Because God never did that to me nor will He ever.
With that said I am going to do my best to be an intentional
parent in our discipline and raising of Jewelene. I pray and pray that she will
grow up to be a Romans 12 Christian. It’s sad and depressing to think that she
only has a little over 4 years with us in this household before she’ll move out
to go to college. It sure feels like we still have a lot of work to do in the 4
years. Please pray for us.
