A Full Moon, Sore Throat, and a Car Accident
Leaving work, I had plans to go to the doctor before heading home. Unfortunately, our healthcare system is a mess these days, so for a variety of reasons, I just decided to head on home. As I’m sure you’re well aware, life often throws curveballs into our plans. Especially when we are tired and ready to be home after a long day/week.
In a split second, I found myself being rear-ended at a stoplight. I couldn’t help but cry while waiting for the police to arrive. How else do you release a plethora of emotions? When I got out of the car, I noticed the full moon. Of course.
As a nurse, it’s one-hundred-percent true what they say about the moon causing an increased sense of craziness. It seems like everyone and everything is much more difficult to handle. If you work in healthcare, you just know. If you don’t, consider yourself blessed. It’s a thing.
Everyone in the accident was safe and uninjured. Cars not so much, but that is okay in the end. Medications helped the sore throat, and the moon continually changes phases. Life continues on.
It’s funny to me that at the same time all of the above was going on, I came across a journal prompt with the following question. A God thing, I know.
Are there any gifts God may want to give you that you are begging for instead?
My mind immediately drew to the gift of slowing down and resting. It was more than evident to me that my body needed rest. After all, that’s the thing your body needs most when you are fighting off a bout of sickness. But, I am a nurse and we are the worst at taking care of ourselves.
I had known and felt a sense of all-around exhaustion for weeks. Many work days felt longer than eight hours. The swollen tonsils weren’t going away on their own. Then I found myself cold and tired, standing in the middle of a busy road with a wrecked car. I needed rest more than I knew.
God provided for what I needed at the time. I know He had been using subtle circumstances over time to remind me to care for myself well, but I had paid them no attention. I kept trying to pour from an empty cup. It doesn’t work for long.
I’ve been reminded looking back at these events, that God always gives us strength to keep showing up. But He also grants us wisdom to care for ourselves along the way. I’m thankful we serve a faithful and protecting God who is always with us. Our guardian angels may get exhausted, but our Heavenly Father never tires out. I pray that it will comfort you today, as it has done for me. No matter what life brings, God is with you.
Ecclesiastes 3:9-15, NLT
What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.
And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.
