Tag: fearless

Flamingos and other thoughts

Posted on by fearlessatheart

It’s been 3 days since my non-weight bearing status was implemented, and I hate it. 

I feel stuck. I know I need to rest and heal but I don’t like being still. But, I’m constantly reminded that doing hard things is how we grow. I guess I could choose to wallow in my pity party or I can use this time to better myself. 

Maybe I can use this time to read books that I never had time to? I have been blessed with a clinical opportunity that doesn’t need me to be on my feet so I can focus on that. God works in mysterious ways. 

I was reminded of a verse recently.

“I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; From where shall my help come? My help comes from Yahweh, who made heaven and earth.” Psalms 121: 1-2

This reminds me that God is in control. He isn’t surprised by anything rather He can use everything for His glory. I have to keep giving the future and possible surgery repeatedly up to God. I am not being stupid, rather I am following the Doctors orders to a T, but I still have this thought in the back of my head-what could surgery mean for my life?

These anxious thoughts keep me from doing things fearful that I’ll make my leg worse. If I let these thoughts reign in my brain then I will dig myself into a hole and never come out. I constantly have to remind myself that if surgery happens, life will still be okay. I have a tremendous support system and family that have been with me through worse. And we came out of that stronger for it. Actually, I was able to get up the stairs by using the techniques that I learned after my car accident and we found a tub bench etc in my parents basement that are useful to me now. Life comes full circle but I’m older and wiser now. I’m a rehab nurse, but it’s a lot easier to be the nurse as opposed to the patient. Anyways, here I am making the best of a hard situation and trying to learn what God wants me to now. By the way, I can’t help but think about flamingo when I stand. Maybe I’ll bring the flamingo look to the cool side. Oh who am I kidding, I don’t want to be one of the cool kids.

Forced Rest due to a broken foot

Posted on by fearlessatheart

I broke my foot and not in any really cool way. It was a perfect storm and I placed my foot in the wrong place at the wrong time. I felt so embarrassed, but oh well. 

I earned myself a boot and non-weight bearing status for at least 6 weeks. Not how I envisioned ending the summer but we pivot our plans. Life is messy.

Yesterday, I was digging myself a hole of woe is me when a friend reminded me to look at the good things. Maybe someone up in heaven really thought that I could benefit from slowing down. I think He could have been a little less dramatic, but in all honesty, I don’t 100 percent know that I would have listened. I’m stubborn that way, but my stubbornness has gotten me this far. 

It has only been less than 48 hours since I was told that I couldn’t use my right leg for the time being if I wanted to avoid surgery. I’ve already learned a few things.

  1. Using crutches is a lot harder than it looks and actually takes some fínese. It uses muscles that I didn’t know existed. It takes coordination and balance. 
  2. The flamingo look is in. 
  3. God meets you where you are at and if you have eyes to see then you will see the way He loves you sweetly. This is not where I desire to be. My leg hurts, my soul feels trapped, and I don’t like staying still. But there is beauty in slowing down-chocolate from a best friend, flowers from a sweet aunt, parents that babysit the wild child, and a husband that worries/loves you. 
  4. God desires our attention. He desires and deserves our attention. When life gets busy, it’s easy to put my attention on different things. Now, I’m literally stuck in bed and there is nowhere to look but up.
  5. Sometimes, it is okay-necessary-to accept help. Most times, people offer to help because they care and you are not a burden for accepting it. One cannot survive life on their own, but together-hand in hand-we can thrive. I am usually the one offering the help, and it’s really humbling to literally need help to get up the stairs, but that’s the best form of life-a give and take. No one is better.

Yes, life doesn’t look anything like I pictured it a week ago, but life can be beautiful in the hard and the holy. Here’s me living my best flamingo life spotting the coolest fashion in the form of a CAM boot and knee scooter. 

Halfway through 30

Posted on by fearlessatheart

30 years. A new decade.

My 20s were full of life and hardship as I graduated college, became a nurse, shattered my body, and rebuilt my life.

I thought 30 would be a whole lot different than it is right now, but I wouldn’t have it any different.

I’m not where I thought I would be, but I have so much more. I think that’s life.

Maybe you are one of the lucky ones that life has gone entirely like you planned, I am so happy for you!

But maybe, life has thrown you some curveballs and you are not sure that you are okay with it.

I’ve been there. I get it. Life is tough sometimes, but even in that, life is sweet. 

You are probably thinking, “She’s crazy.”

Maybe I am, but I’ve learned in my short life, that there are sweet things in the middle of chaos.

Now don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that it’s not hard-whatever your hard is-but I’m saying that sometimes wildflowers grow.

I’m 30. I have lived a lot of life in the past 30 years, but it has made me the person I am today. It sounds cliche but the hardest years of my life made me better than who I would have been.

I feel SO much.

I love hard.

It’s really hard for me to let go of things and people.

I understand what it’s like to claw your way back from nothing. 

I get it. Life is hard, but as I was reflecting I realized that while life is different than I thought it would be in my 30s, it’s more.

More love.

More empathy.

More peace.

More space.

More grounded.

I don’t know what my 30s hold, but I hope it’s full of more Jesus.

I don’t know where you are in life, but I hope you look for the wildflowers growing in the midst of your hard. Life is hard but holy. Remember that. There is holy in the ordinary.

Embrace the Mess

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Motherhood is messy.

In reality, life is messy. It seems to take life right out of you. I know that sounds weird-life takes the life out of you. 

When one is a working mom going to grad school, there is a lot of life that is taken out. I feel like I’ve been in survival mode for the last couple months. With everything going on, I feel like I haven’t had energy for anything else. That’s just the season of life I am in right now. I truly can’t imagine doing anything else. Don’t tell me that I should slow down and stop school because I won’t be happy if I just stopped. I have a goal and my soul isn’t cut out to be a stay at home mom. I admire those who can but I can’t and I have known that forever. Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I love Atlas and want to spend time with him more than anything, but for my well being, I NEED to have an outlet other than being at home.

  • Embrace the mess. My house is far from tidy. It’s clean but there is mess and I’m okay with that because a rambunctious toddler and his parents live here. Life is messy and with everything, I’m honestly amazed that I haven’t had a mental breakdown yet. I don’t have energy to make sure everything is tidy, but rather that everyone is clean and happy. I think it was when I decided to embrace the mess that my mental health stabilized. Work is messy, motherhood is messy and I’m just one human. I can’t do everything. Bottom line is that Atlas is happy and safe. I want him to grow up loved and cared for. 
  • Cherish the small moments. There is a whole lot of bad in the world, but there is good also. You just need to look closely for it. The weather has been crappy and Atlas has been fussy, but that also means that he has been a little bit more cuddly. The days are long but the years are short. The dishes can wait because my little one needs me to hold him.
  • Take care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup. You can give and give of yourself till there is nothing left, but then where would you be? You need to prioritize yourself especially if you are a parent or in a giving profession. You can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.
  • Embrace the messy emotions. We want everything-even emotions to be clean and tied up with a pretty bow. Honestly, that’s not been my experience with emotions. Emotions are messy and should be messy. We, as humans, need to embrace the messy emotions. We shouldn’t be afraid of being angry, being depressed, being sad and being hurt. The initial emotion is not bad in and of itself but rather the wallowing in the emotions-giving it more and more room. That can lead to sin, but we need to acknowledge the emotions. 

These are just a few thoughts in my head the last couple weeks. Embrace the mess that is life. There is beauty in the chaos. You might be better and calmer because of it. 

Atlas’s Birth

Posted on by fearlessatheart

Here’s the details of Atlas’s birth. Some of you probably know bits and pieces of it but I wanted to write/remember the entirety of it so here it is. You all didn’t really ask for it, but here you go.

I was diagnosed with preeclampsia without severe effects around 35 weeks of pregnancy. Basically it was just high blood pressure but it was enough that they moved up my C-section date. I decided to go with a C-section initially because of the screws in my pelvis from my car accident. Anyways, my doctor wanted to do the c-section because of my high blood pressure at 37 weeks but she was ok as long as nothing severely changed waiting until 37 weeks and 6 days. Fast forward to my last prenatal appointment before my scheduled C-section. My blood pressure was up so they sent me over to labor and delivery for labs. One of the labs was elevated so they decided to keep me overnight for observation with the plan for the section the next morning but with the knowledge that if anything changes overnight they would most likely end up taking him out. 

We ended up having a decent night at the hospital even though the meds they gave me to sleep made me jittery and they were waking me up every couple of hours to do vitals and non stress tests to monitor the baby. The C-section went as planned the next morning and Atlas Kane Strader was born at 958 weighing 6lbs 9 ounces. After they took care of him and closed me up, we were on our way to recovery. Atlas’s temperature was a bit low so the nurse ended up checking his sugar. It was only 21 and they typically like it to be over 60. They gave him the yummy glucose gel after they got some blood. The lab test showed a sugar of 18. He ended up getting some donor milk because my milk hadn’t come in yet. Then started the process of me pumping every couple of hours to give him what I had pumped plus donor milk after they drew his blood sugar. All this was happening while the anesthesia and spinal was wearing off and my incision was starting to hurt more. There was just a lot going on but I felt super supported by the doctors and nurses. 

Fast forward to about 4 am. Atlas was due for a feeding so the nurse got a blood sugar before. It read 39. I was in the process of feeding him the little bit I had pumped when the nurse came back and said that the lab test came back at 24 and the doctor wanted him started on IV dextrose. I knew and had worked with the pediatric doctor on but nothing prepared me for the amount of fear I had in turning my baby over to the nurse. I knew the doctor had Atlas’s best interests at heart and was really good, but it was my heart outside my body that I was handing over. He ended up staying in the special care nursery all Wednesday through Thursday morning. 

Shortly after he was taken to the nursery, my nurse helped me figure out how to walk to the bathroom by myself and took out my catheter. Now I was free to visit my baby in the nursery whenever I could. We ended up being in the hospital a total of 4 days after the C-section. The birth in and of itself wasn’t traumatic but the weird unexpected things that happened after threw me for a loop. In that though, I can see God’s hand in everything from giving the recovery nurse the premonition to check a blood sugar to the proactiveness of the whole team involved to care for both our physical needs and emotional needs as my hormones are going haywire being separated from my baby.

Atlas Kane has lived up to his name as a warrior from the very beginning of his beautiful life. May he continue to live up to his name and fight for the One who created him.

Brain Injury awareness

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March is Brain Injury Awareness month. 

I really didn’t think I would still be struggling with things six years later. But here we are, six years later and migraines still knock me for a loop.

I’m just going to be honest here…My brain injury has complicated this pregnancy season. It has made my “normal” TBI symptoms of migraines, forgetfulness, and brain fog worse. Now I’m 4 days away from meeting my little love, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This season has been trying and my brain injury making it a bit more complicated, but this little life inside of me is going to make everything worth it. Migraines like that are fewer and far between, but now they knock me for a loop because I’m not expecting them. It’s times like this that I want so much to be normal, but then I remember that this thing doesn’t take away from me, but rather it adds. I’m who I am now because of it. Here’s a few things to consider as you interact with people with known or unknown head trauma.

  1. Every injury is different. You may know someone who had a brain injury, but that does not mean you know this new person’s story. I get that you are trying to relate, but better than jumping in, listen. Their story may surprise you.
  2. Just because we think differently, don’t think we are stupid. Can I be really vulnerable? This is one of my biggest fears. On bad brain days, when the words get caught more often than naught, I fear that people will think that I’m incompetent. I know I shouldn’t care this much about what people think, but I’ve worked my butt off to get to where I am. So yes, I probably care too much about what people think and honestly, words might get caught in my head but I know that I’m just as smart if not more than I was before my accident.
  3. “Invisible” disabilities are still disabilities. Just because you can’t see everything a person is going through or what is exactly happening in their body, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

These are just a few ways that you can accept a person with a brain injury! Thanks for reading my thoughts!

6 months down, a lifetime to go.

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Now I still have so much to learn about marriage and about Sean, but we’ve made it halfway through year one and we started our journey in the throes of a pandemic. Here are a few things that I’ve learned in the hardest and best 6 months:

  • Marriage is a commitment-A promise to someone else. It’s promising that the other person will always be the first priority in your life. It’s promising that his happiness is valued. 
  • Marriage is a collaboration-rather than a compromise. A friend once told me that in compromises one person usually lose something but in a collaboration both parties work together to a common end. I think that’s true. Both parties are often more satisfied with the end result.
  • Marriage is an endless sleepover with my favorite person. I look forward to coming home and seeing Sean and curling up next to him. I think someday I’ll get over it (but I really hope not).
  • Grand gestures are nice but it’s the little things that truly mean a lot. Flowers and candy are always appreciated by me but it’s more about the gentle way he holds me when my emotions are fragile or the way he waits till I wake up in the afternoon to mow the lawn.
  • Loving well means you need to learn the other person’s love language. 
  • Communication never goes out of style.
  • Love is a choice-even when the feelings are there.
  • It’s not all about a wedding, but marriage does deserve to be celebrated. 

So here we are: 6 months down, a lifetime to go, and a whole lot more to learn and fail at the first time. Sean is my favorite person and I can’t imagine doing this marriage thing without him by my side. Marriage is hard but worth it nonetheless.

Loving your Neighbors and Other Expressions of God’s Goodness.

Posted on by fearlessatheart

“It is a gift to have a body that holds our soul here on earth, with a heart that beats and air that

moves through our lungs. It’s a gift to be able to come to God with our prayers. It’s a gift to do the

things that give us joy. It’s a gift to have opportunities to love our neighbors. We live an incarnational

life on purpose. God designed it that way. By our very design we have limitations. We can fight them

or accept them.”

Alexandra Kuykendall

I was just thinking the other day about God’s goodness.

Tonight, I was blown away by God’s goodness. Honestly, if you asked me a year ago, if I would be living Mansfield by my choice, dating the love of my life and working at a hospital

in direct patient care, I would have laughed in your face.

I did laugh in my brothers face when he mentioned something about me returning to the hospital setting.

I honestly figured that was long gone as well as the hopes that anyone would be able to love me and my

broken (albeit slowly put back together brain and “Sara”). But God in his goodness put me back together

piece by piece and placed someone in my life that could handle my put together self with grace.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but right now, I can honestly say that God is good. A year and a

half ago, I struggled with believing-truly believing-that statement.

God is good.

God has a good plan for me.

I couldn’t see it. Sometimes, I honestly wondered why He saved me.

BUT GOD!

He has burst out of every box that I tried to put Him in. 

I have been so blessed by the unit and people in the hospital God has placed me with.

The man in my life who graciously deals with my schedule and loves my healing brain.

My small group girls and leaders God has put in my life to mold me more like himself.

The sunsets and sunrises where God shows His glory after a long day or long night.

So here I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God and realizing that God is not asking me to change

the world. He is simply asking me to love my neighbor-the people He has chosen to put in my sphere of

influence. Here I’ll be, simply loving my corner of the world. 

Prayers, Praises, and Pleas

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Prayer. What does that mean?

The dictionary defines prayer as “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship”.

Often times, prayer is just a conversation with the Creator of the universe who humbles Himself to talk to you.

Have you ever thought about that? 

It’s really and truly remarkable that this powerful and wonderful Creator wants to have a relationship with you and with me.

Often times when I am in the pits of despair I don’t have the words to pray. Right after the accident, I couldn’t pray out loud because I was so grateful to God for saving me. I would start crying before I uttered the first words. I wasn’t ever able to collect my thoughts together, but I knew that Jesus knew.

HE KNEW.

He knew how hard it was to relearn everything. He knew how grateful I was for life, but how disappointed I felt about life not turning out my way.

He knew the depression, the joy, the relief, the anger and the vast array of emotions that floated through my head.

Even when things are going well, sometimes I can’t collect my thoughts. When things started moving fast towards this job at OhioHealth, my brain was spinning with all God was doing. While I didn’t have the words to put to my thoughts, Jesus knew.

He knew how overwhelmed I was about this chance. He knew the disbelief I felt because I had taken acute care off the table in my mind. He knew the paralyzing fear I felt about possibly failing.

HE KNEW.

How often do we not pray because the request seems too vast, too impossible, or too mundane? I’ve learned in the past 3 years to make room for prayer even if I don’t have words. The simple act of praising and spending time in the presence of the One who comforts me is enough. Albeit, if I have words, then I present them to God. If I don’t, I simply know that He knows and that comforts me.

Here I am, challenging you to join me in making room for the Creator of the universe in my mundane life. Let me encourage you that He knows your hurt, your heartbreak, your fears, your joys, and your excitements.

4 Things to Learn in Waiting.

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Seasons. Blooming. Waiting. Growing.

These are words that have been pressing on my soul in these past months. 

 

“Your fear of the unknown has spoken so many things over you, but it has never spoken anything true. It has only led you into places that only lead to deeper fears, so how could it ever be a voice that you can trust? I hope that you can beyond to trust something greater, beyond your fears. I hope you can trust that Love is greater than any fear, no matter how hard it has been to see how Love is present here. Your fear of the unknown may continue to speak loudly, but may you always remember, it holds no truth, and it surely does not define you. Love speaks louder. Love always speaks louder.”

-Morgan Harper Nichols

 

I read this today, and it spoke to the very depths of my soul. I’m entering a new season with this fellowship, and it’s bringing all my insecurities and fears to the surface.

The past couple of months have been a season of waiting-waiting for God to move in certain areas. In this season-this waiting, striving, and thriving season, here are a few things that I’ve learned.

 

  • Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough to meet all your needs if you let Him. This is something I had to learn the hard way. After a pretty stressful day of thing after thing not working out, I was looking to my boyfriend and friends to fill that need when I should have been looking to Jesus. It’s not fair to them to expect them to meet those needs when they can’t meet it in totality. It just leaves me feeling let down and upset because it seems like they don’t care but in reality, they just don’t have the energy to meet my emotional needs. Jesus does. “God won’t let you down; He won’t leave you. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.” Deu.31:8MSG
  • Waiting doesn’t mean you are stagnant. Waiting on God to move in a certain area means that you may not be moving in that area, but what about the other areas? In my case, I was waiting for God to move in the job front, I eventually figured out that I had more time to put roots into people and my anchor down into this place that was quickly becoming home. I started being more intentional with the people God had placed into my sphere of influence.
  • Rest is a needed skill. Making time for rest is a needed habit to cultivate into your life. If one can learn to instill this habit into their life now, then later when life picks up speed, it would be easier to maintain because the habit has already been established. It only takes two weeks for an ongoing decision to become a habit. 
  • Invest in your growth. This is a perfect time to read that book you have always been wanting to read or pick that hobby you’ve been dying to learn. This is a carved out and designated time to invest in yourself and growth.

 

So if you need me in the next couple of days, I’ll be relishing this time I have and learning to trust God in the midst of this unknown season.