the ministry of presence

I feel that God puts certain people in our lives to teach us things.  The strength I see in these people is unbelievable and reassures me that God is with them during their times of struggle.  As many of you know, I volunteer at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and just recently finished a 16 week practicum with CHP's Child Life Department.  During my time there I have met so many wonderful and inspiring patients who probably don't even know how much of an impact they have had on me.  I've worked with so many patients and have grown very close to some patients that I have seen over time as I have been at CHP.  The strangest thing is that now that I have been there for a while, I have started to encounter patients that I know from my life outside of those hospital walls who are people treated at CHP.  Two particular patients that come to mind have just been recently diagnosed with leukemia.  I had the wonderful privilege of being able to visit with these two patient's and their families today.  The thing that amazed me the most was the smiles on the faces of these two little ones even though what they are experiencing could not any adult of their feet.  One of the things that took my breath away was the family support of not only the patients but the support of families by families.  I was talking to the father of one of cancer kids and I asked him if he had been able to receive some support from the other families on the floor since his daughter had been diagnosed and his answer made me want to fall to my knees.  He said "Oh yeah these people have been great.  They've been so wonderful.  You have to get know them, I mean you're going to be living next to them and going through all of this together".  I witnessed three family units sitting in the sun room all talking about their experiences of having a child with cancer and one mom (who's daughter had been diagnosed for some time) offering support and advice to the families whose children were newly diagnosed.  I truly believe that God used this small snippet of time in my day to show me the obvious truth that He is still at work in this world in bringing people together even through the most trying of circumstances and the true strength of people's faith even when things seem so impossible.

I'm sorry if this post was confusing because of the lack of names haha but I wanted to respect the privacy of these two amazing families.  I'm a fix it kind of girl and want more than anything to make the hurt, sadness, and struggles of these families go away because no one deserves this.  But I think God is time and time again using my experience with individuals at Children's to show me the importance of the ministry of presence.  During my time in Malawi last year, I was introduced to the idea of the ministry of presence and God has continued to show me the importance of this gift to people during there struggles.  There was nothing that I could do to make the pain and suffering of a stroke riddled man go away while in Malawi nor the disability of this adorable baby that made him an outcast of society.  And there is nothing that I can do to make these two sweet girls be free of pediatric cancer.



As I sit here right now I truly believe that God is taking me by the shoulders and saying "Please, please cast the burdens and the feeling of needing to fix the hurt of those around you on Me because I am the only one who can fix this".  I believe that God is showing me that being there for those who are hurting and being that sounding board and listening ear 

can be the best gift you can give to someone or their family as they wade through the struggles they are facing.  I want so bad to be the one who can make a difference and do something big in this world but I thank God for slowing me down and reminding me that I am just His messenger and that ultimately He is the one who gets to make the difference and I get to be one of the many faces that represent Him.  

To sort of side track from the more serious haha, I'd like to share some photos of the past few days of some wonderful events that have occurred.  First, my baby sister graduated from college!

So proud of her and I can't wait to see where God takes her in her next chapter of life!  One piece of advice for you baby sister is to take this next chapter and let God guide you in it.  I had this "perfect" idea of what I wanted post-college life to look like and it took me awhile to realize God's plan was gonna be different than mine and that I'd be much more at peace if I just let Him take the reigns on this one :).

Another fun event was my cousin Evan's senior percussion concert.  He and I have always bonded over our nerdy love for band and percussion haha and I was so proud of him this weekend as he stepped way out of his shell and preformed the heck out of the percussion music on Friday night :)

So in two short days I'm off on my Guatemalan adventure....eeeek!  I've got most of the packing done and just trying to finish off a few last minute things before heading out early Friday morning!  Prayers would be appreciated as I travel and get settled in during the beginning of the trip.  I feel like God has great plans for this trip and I'm excited for the crazy, wild ride that this trip is going to be :).  Also prayers for communication would be great as well being that my Spanish is ummm well rusty to put it nicely hahah.  I pray that God blesses each of you and that your journey is an adventure because no matter where God takes us He's always using us for some part of his amazing plan.