Everything happens for a reason...

One of our nursing teachers made a comment this weekend that she believes everything happens for a reason.  Sometimes I have a hard time with this statement.  I think that often times things happen for a reason.  And then other times, things happen as a result of an action or a decision, either good or bad.  Cells going haywire in the body, a person's decision to drive when they've had too much to drink...

But she went on to say that God puts people in our life for a reason and to take in as much as you can from their being there.  And that's something I totally agree with.  Sometimes we are faced with some pretty unbelievable circumstances, but it can bring a new wave of people into your life, who have much to teach you.  It helps to make all the heartache make a little more sense.

As I look around my fairly messy home on this Monday morning after clinicals, I think about Terri.  I only met her a year or so ago, in the stressful environment known as nursing school.  She is a 'more mature' nursing student, like me, struggling to take care of her daughter and mother, work full-time while going to school full-time.  Not so long after I met her, she made a rosary for Sofie and asked if it would be okay for her to have it.  I cried when she handed it to me.  It hangs on our bedroom wall and it always will. Even though she has suffered a lot of personal heartache, she is a giving, warm person, and always has a smile to give.  Her dad passed away a short while ago, and she was left with running the family's flower shop.  The economy took its toll, and after being in business for years and years, she made the difficult decision to close the shop and find a new job.  She is reinventing her life and not looking back.  A person could learn a lot from her.

I am getting ready to go back to work and wondering how I am going to get Sofie fed and dressed and medications given and plopped into her wheelchair ready to get on (and off the bus),  still get my schoolwork done, while learning a new job.  Lisa is the person I lean on to help us.  I rely on her, but I learn a lot from her.  She patiently let me practice taking blood pressures on her, and gave me some pointers on finding a person's pulse, when I couldn't quite get it in the beginning.  She has no medical training but knows a lot, because of her own medical problems.  She never gives up, has more common sense than anyone I know, and has a gut instinct that cannot be matched.  I just called her and she didn't hesitate to say yes and help us out.  Thank God for introducing us to Lisa.

Thank God for the both of them, and so many others.  And even the not-so-nice ones, because they have something to teach us too.