Hope Rising

Dry earth dusted red

Evening candlelight ambience and drumbeats at the dawn

A cloudless sapphire sky

And a billion brilliant promises holding up the sky at night

Whispering the peace of “star light, star bright”

Children of the promise

Rescued from a world where death is not the greatest evil

Protected for a time

And understanding little the desperate hope that rides on them

The future of a people torn asunder by the wind

Ashes choke the air

Fiery scars blacken a paradise now lost

Death screams victory

Only the careful ear hears life’s resilient rebirth

Hope rising from the nascent green now pushing through the earth

Heaven’s heart breaks

Apathy paralyzes the equipped

We have the chance to change

But the forgotten burn to ash, for we fail to understand

The water of life to quench the flame is resting in our hands

Her victories small

Time beats senselessly against battlements of tradition

Long battles hard won

For fragile souls both prisoners and casualties of war

Sustained by Grace’s cry that they are life worth fighting for

And so, hope is rising...

Lesson Learned

This week has been an excellent example of when Meg has so very much bouncing around in her head but insufficient ability to mold those thoughts into words. Somehow, all of it came to a culmination today, and I must either write or explode. So if this sounds like it should be about three different blog posts, it probably should. If I were concerned about decorum or literary style, I would separate them-- but I like to live life on the edge.

I started this post during clinical last week but couldn't figure out where to go with it....


As I write this, I'm sitting in the nuclear medicine department at Vanderbildt while my patient undergoes a stress test.  She's an absolutely fascinating pathological case study, though most of her care has been relatively straightforward.  As complicated as the pharmacodynamics may be, nuclear medicine is mostly a lot of waiting... and waiting... and redosing so you can wait some more.  Since she's my only pt today (the joys of being a student), that leaves me with a lot of time to think and remember as the mechanical melody of the hospital-- the shuffling of footsteps, the beeping of monitors, the methodic whir of a CT-- lull me gently into introspective reminiscence.


My thoughts turn to the dozens of patients I've cared for in the last two years. I can still see each of their faces clearly in my mind.  One was a certifiable genius.  He worked on world-renown projects that you would all recognize if I were allowed to tell you about them.  But then he dreamed up a cutting-edge endeavor that went horribly wrong, and several of his coworkers and close friends were killed.  He blamed himself and went crazy with guilt.  By the time research revealed it wasn't his fault at all, it was too late.  He had lost touch with reality completely.  Now he was dying alone in a tiny central TN hospital.  It is his story I remember when I lose a patient.  Sometimes forgiving yourself-- even if the guilt is irrational and misplaced-- is the biggest hurdle.


Another patient I treated was in an incredible amount of pain but was already maxed out on pain meds.  He had a plethora of problems that all antagonized each other.  The medical focus had become so centered on just keeping him alive that some of the simpler comfort measures had slipped through the cracks.  His skin was so dry and itchy that he was literally scratching it off.  I brought some lotion and began spreading it on his back.  He was too weak to even finish a sentence, but my heart knew the words as he spoke them. "Jesus said, 'Whatever you do for the least of these...'" His is the voice I hear when my heart needs perspective.


I penned those three paragraphs almost effortlessly and then spent about an hour gnawing on my pen and trying to decide what to write next. Those stories have great meaning to me, but I feared they would leave the reader (that's you!) with a bit of a "so what?" feeling.  I mean, I've written pretty extensively about my patients before.

Today was another clinical day. I was assigned two patients this morning, and both of them were very medically straightforward and easy to care for. I had a lot of free time, so I bopped from room to room looking for interesting procedures to help with or observe.  As I was helping a wound care specialist change multiple bandages on a poor sweet old woman with several pressure sores, she asked some polite chit-chat-type questions: Where are you from? Where do you go to school? What do you want to do with your life? I gave her a ten second summary (...came from Illinois, currently at Belmont, headed to Africa...).  She sighed with a smile and said, "You know, I would love to do some mission work, but I know my heart would be captured and I would never be able to come back, so I better just stay here."

I was speechless.

Isn't that the point?!

Such innocent words, spoken with friendly honesty.  My heart struggled for a response for a moment before settling on one.  Pity and sadness welled within me, for this woman had, due to reasons I am not privy to, deliberately decided to deprive herself of a joy second only to experiencing Christ himself. In fact, it's an experience that would likely include the aforementioned encounter.  And in such a sideways way, it was almost like her heart knew it, even if the rest of her had absolutely no idea what she was missing.

And I wished that she could have met that second patient of mine, because her heart seemed to be searching for perspective.

A few minutes later, an exceptionally irritable and difficult patient received an order for a blood draw. She was obese with deep veins and labeled as a "hard stick." IV therapy had been called the last time she needed a blood draw, and the nursing consensus on the floor was that they probably would need to be again.  The patient mentioned that they had called a neonatal nurse to stick her during a previous hospitalization (I'm telling you, this lady had freakishly tiny and tricky veins). I decided to give it a go. I got blood on the first stick. As I held the needle and filled the vial, my memories flashed to a tiny little boy I barely had the chance to get to know, a child whose tired little veins just would not accept an IV needle from my inexperienced hand.

Then I remembered my first patient, and decided it might be time to begin forgiving myself.

As the shift neared its close, I slipped into the nurse's lounge to polish off a therapeutic ham sandwich.  One of the other nurses from the floor (whom I admire and respect greatly) struck up a conversation that quickly (through her guidance, not mine) turned towards Zambia.  She had asked me once before what kind of nurse I wanted to be, and now she was wondering if and when I planned to return to Zambia.  She probably didn't expect a month/week/day countdown.  I laughed at her surprise. "Sorry-- I suppose I'm just a little anxious to get back to them."  Her answer might be the most calming and confirming thing I've heard since I set foot on American soil in August. "Well of course you are-- they're your kids. You can't just walk away from your kids."

What I would give for my family and friends to understand that... or even to understand it better myself!

Because I don't know what those kids are to me, really.  Amy and I were talking the other day and she reminded me that I have "23 nieces, or nephews, or pseudokids, or whatever they are..." waiting for me when I return. I don't know who I am to those children, or who exactly they are to me. I mean, I'm Auntie Meghan, but not "Auntie" in quite the same way that some of the hired nannies are-- for many of them, the job is predominantly just that: a job. But I'm not their mom either. I have a niece whom I love dearly and would do anything for. It's sort of similar to that, but still not quite the same.  I hope to be in their lives for a very, very long time (approximately forever, actually...) but I don't know what even tomorrow holds, or if I'll be needed more elsewhere sometime down the road. Kazembe may not be where I end up. So the only way I know how to describe them is just to say that, in some way they're mine. They're a lot of other people's, too. A whole lot of people care very deeply for these kids. But that doesn't make me any less attached. That doesn't make me any less protective, possessive, or in love. In many ways, it actually makes me more so.  Forgive me if that makes absolutely no sense at all.

This life that I have chosen (or that has chosen me)-- nursing and mission-- is a double-edged vocation: I see people at the best times in their lives, and I see them at the worst times in their lives.  I'm expected to be healer and helper, friend and advocate, teacher and prophet, warrior and peacemaker.  I smile when they smile, and sometimes I cry when they cry. Shoot, sometimes I cry when they don't cry.  Sometimes they look to me for answers that I don't have.  Sometimes they demand more of me than what I think I can give.  Sometimes my courage and confidence are stretched to the breaking point and then a little further still. Sometimes they learn from me. Usually, they're the teachers.

If today is any indication, I have a lot left to learn, ladies and gentlemen...

One beautiful and unexpected lesson at a time.

Completely Pointless Ramblings

The semester is officially half over. Part of me is ecstatic-- I loaded way more on my plate than what I should have tried to carry this fall. Work, classes, and the constant and ongoing battle of assimilating into my own culture have proven to be a bit more taxing than I bargained for, so I'm relieved to know that I'm halfway there. At the same time, I'm way behind in several of my classes, and the midterm mark means that time for redemption is short.  I should probably be studying instead of blogging....

Fall break brought with it an opportunity to share a little about my summer with one of the churches that helped me go. It was a complete and total fiasco. The pews of the tiny country sanctuary were "packed" with about two dozen people. After much cajoling, I finally managed to convince my little brother to let me use his 32" flatscreen to show pictures on-- you can just plug a flashdrive into it and flip through the pictures on the screen. But because I'm Meg, I ran off and left Nashville without Pegasus (my computer), which had all of my pictures on it. Luckily, I had uploaded many of them to Walgreens.com and could just download them from there. Of course, the internet connection at my mom's was too sketchy to allow that, so I ended up dashing to a friend's house Sunday morning before church to pull the pictures off line. Just as I was downloading the last picture, something glitched and my entire flashdrive-- pictures, files, school papers, everything-- was completely wiped.

That's how I ended up standing nervously behind the pulpit in a tiny, beautiful country church, clutching a wrinkled scrap of paper with six hastily scrawled bullet points to talk about, and completely winging the entire presentation.  I had intended to use the pictures as my outline to help pace me, but I was going to have to rearrange my thoughts and sort of make it up as I went along. Two minutes later, I had already sped through my bullet points and was shifting anxiously from foot to foot as I desperately tried to think of a way to explain to these people what I saw and experienced there.  My flying thoughts settled on Jessie, and I told her story. Due to a combination of nerves, sleep deprivation, and my own emotional instability, I ended up crying (and so did most of the people in the pews). Then I opened the floor for questions, and by the time we were done, I had run over a solid 20 minutes. Just another morning in the life of Meg.

It was the first time I had shared anything about my summer experience with a group (and in retrospect, I'm glad it was a small and forgiving group). I really enjoyed it. Those kids deserve to have their story told. And I love any excuse to talk about them and brag on them, because they're pretty amazing little munchkins in my book. At the same time, it makes me really uncomfortable when people tell me how proud of me they are, or how brave I must be, or how great it is that I want to spend my life on the mission field.  It's not about me. I don't want it to be about me. It's not supposed to be about me.  And yet I'm stuck in this interesting and contradictory position where I have to ask for money (which I also hate doing... guess I'm gonna have to get over that, huh?) so I can go back to them.  Straighten me out here, cyberfriends-- I'm confusing myself.

In other news, the Cardinals are headed to the World Series. This means that my week will have a tinge of unquenchable giddiness to it no matter what. Also, despite oversleeping and being 45 minutes late to my 8am test, I'm pretty sure I managed to ace it in the 22 minutes I had left to take it. And my afternoon class got cancelled, so I can do something productive this afternoon, like sleep and paint. Probably not at the same time though.

Sorry for consuming two minutes of your life with my pointless and ineloquent ramblings, but to be fair, I warned you in the title...

For those of you keeping up with the count, I'm down to 6 months and 26ish days.  Assuming nursing school doesn't kill me first.

Much love!

My Reason Why

This is a post I’ve wanted to write since the end of May, but I just haven’t been able to find the words. Luckily, God has gifted other people with a greater gift of communication than I possess, so I’ll use their words. Bear with me, folks. This post is an answer to questions from a plethora of people, but it’s also an answer to my own questions—so if it doesn’t make complete sense, let’s blame it on that.

I love flying.  As an “adult,” that attachment is mostly manifested in my infatuation with airports and a burning desire to go skydiving. But even when I was a kid, I loved the idea of flying. I used to watch Peter Pan right before bedtime in an effort to bring dreams where any merry little thought could life me to the skies.

My first connecting flight on the way to Kazembe this summer was from DC to Addis Ababa.  I settled into my window seat and started making origami birds for the kid in front of me. Literally moments before the plane took off, a young South African man sprinted onto the plane and dove into the seat next to me. I was a little startled. He introduced himself, but the name was not one I was familiar with or could pronounce, and I don’t remember it.  He told me a little bit about himself. He had come straight from college graduation to the airport to fly back home to Cape Town and had majored in international development and something else. After a polite amount of chatter, we both settled into our seats. A few minutes into the flight I pulled out my journal to chronicle my adventure thus far.  It’s a red leatherbound notebook with the names of Jesus engraved on the cover.  Almost immediately, the guy next to me pointed to one of the names.

“Who is this?”

I completely froze. What did he mean? What did he want me to say? Was he asking as someone who was curious, or combative, or instigatory, or maybe confused? What base of knowledge did he have—I mean, did I need to start with Genesis? What words could I possibly offer in explanation? 

A billion words and phrases rushed through my mind like an unstoppable waterfall. He is Savior, Lord, Redeemer, Friend, Father, Romancer, Advocate, Judge. He’s the reason I get up every morning, the reason I can offer forgiveness rather than demand what is “mine,” the answer to so many questions, and the source of so many more questions. He makes perfect sense but is beyond comprehension; He is the Alpha and Omega of all great mysteries.

How could I possibly explain who He is to me? What He is to me? The religious catchphrases of Christianity fall woefully short and in many cases only serve to confuse or disenchant the asker. How incredibly heartbreaking that the inadequacy of Christian explanation and the inconsistency of Christian action should be the reflection of Christ that a lost and broken world sees.  As the mighty philosophers of DC Talk once said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

He is Aslan; He is perfection.  He is Shelter and Refuge, but to follow Him—to truly follow Him, in action instead of lipservice— is not safe at all. It will cost you everything you thought was important.  And the world will look at you like you’re crazy.  But as Jim Elliot wrote, “He is no fool who gives what he can never keep to gain what he can never lose.”

I wanted to pull that kid into my emotions and memories and show him who Jesus is, because words just seemed to be inadequate. Unfortunately, words also seemed to be my only choice.

Scrambling for a verbal cleft to hold onto, I finally offered a brilliant and descriptive answer.

“He…. He… He’s Everything.”

The guy on the plane stared at me patiently, his face impossible to read. No smile or scowl hinted at his intention in asking the question or his perception of my response.  Then, before I had a chance to squeak out a feeble follow-up, he asked another: “Why Africa?”

Now there’s a question that can’t be intelligently answered with words.  I can justify my dedication a bit more now, since I’ve actually been there and loved on those kids, but as of May I was just some crazy American girl with a few screws loose who had dedicated her life and her love to a people she had never met, who had sacrificed relationships and opportunities in a desperate effort to follow the call that had gripped her heart, because she feared that even the slightest distraction would turn her silly flighty gaze away from what she truly believed God had asked of her.  Katie Davis, a young woman from Nashville area Tennessee who dropped everything and went to be a mom to a bunch of Ugandan girls, explains it this way. Emphasis is mine.

"You see, Jesus wrecked my life… My heart had been apprehended by a great love, a love that compelled me to live differently… As I read and learned more and more of what Jesus said, I liked the lifestyle I saw around me less and less. I began to realize that God wanted more from me, and I wanted more of Him… Slowly but surely, I began to realize the truth: I had loved and admired and worshiped Jesus without doing what He said… So I quit my life… But after that year, which I spent in Uganda, returning to “normal” wasn’t possible. I had seen what life was about, and I could not pretend I didn’t know."

Why Africa? Because Jesus said to go into all the world. Because to feed a hungry child is to see the face of Jesus looking back at you. Because I want to spend my life on something that is worth the price. Because my soul thirsts for adventure. Because materialism and consumerism is my Achilles’ heel, and I have never been happier than when I lived in a tiny dusty room with a single suitcase of possessions. Because I highly doubt that I will ever look back on my life and think, “Gee, I just fed too many hungry people and treated too many sick kids and loved far too deeply.” 

But again, how to explain that to some college grad from South Africa that I had just met?

“Because… Jesus said to go.”

And then, he smiled. His eyes were still fixed on the cover of my journal, so I asked him a question in return.

“And who is Jesus to you?”

“He…. well…. He’s Everything.”

Yep. That pretty much covers it.

Love That Demands More

I have a temper. A nasty one. I’m a firm believer in justice and the responsibility of every Christian to protect and love the people around them.  I’m also fiercely protective of my friends and the people under my care.  I do my best to harness these attributes for good, but I admittedly fall short more often than I succeed.

The last couple of weeks have been a lesson in love that I sorely needed but didn’t want to learn. Many of the details I cannot share with you due to privacy laws or common decency, and some details have been changed.  The lesson remains the same.

The last two patients that were randomly placed under my care in the last two weeks were carbon copies of people in my life, right down to the month and year of birth and unique mannerisms (Okay God, I’m listening…).  One was in really terrible condition, but every medical complication this person had could be directly linked to repeated poor lifestyle choices.  My job is to fix bodies. This person was systematically tearing his apart.

I like to think that I’m a pretty compassionate person. Compassion is a virtue that I value very highly. But for this person, I was struggling to produce a single shred.

I wish I could give you the background and details that would make all of that a bit more coherent, but the truth is that there’s really no justification.  By human standards-- even good moral standards-- I was well within my right as a person and a nurse to be frustrated with this individual. As a Christian, I should have recognized a bit more of my own story in the man who was drowning in his own mistakes and couldn’t save himself.

The second patient was admitted to the mental hospital for attempted suicide.  Again, the person’s history was riddled with poor choices and refusal to follow through with others’ attempts to help.  This person was (understandably) sullen and withdrawn and did not want to talk to me.  The feeling was mutual. It took several minutes to get anything beyond a one-word answer. Slowly, the patient began to open up and speak about the people in his life whom he felt he had let down, as well as those who had given up on him.  When the time came for me to go, I walked away with tears in my eyes and breathed a prayer of thanks that I hadn’t given up on him too. He was 19 years old.

My third difficult interaction was not with a patient but rather an individual I encounter pretty much on a daily basis.  The details are unimportant; suffice it to say we have incompatible personalities.  

If one of you is praying for God to teach me patience, stop it immediately.

There’s an intense amount of irony in all of this.  The first patient couldn’t save himself. Neither can I. The second had messed up and given up. But I almost gave up on him. The third… Well, to be honest, it’s an ongoing battle.  But love that falters in the face of resistance isn’t really love at all.  May I not be the one whose huge debt was forgiven that then turned around and demanded payment of pennies.  True grace doesn’t have a withdrawal limit. Neither does true forgiveness. May heaven help me remember it.

Because every conversation should have a good Africa link, let me wrap this up with a story from Kazembe. Once upon a time, I was fighting my way through brush that was taller than I was, carried along by the stream of hundreds of Zambians as we all headed to the river to see the Mwata perform a traditional Mutomboko ceremony.  The bank to the river was steep. I scrambled halfway up with difficulty, then turned and offered a hand to the kid behind me. He recoiled and sprang back, covering his face with his arms and falling backwards. My heart ached at his reaction.  No child’s experiences should train him to flinch from an open hand.  I waited, and a few seconds later the kid decided I wasn’t going to beat him. He reached up for my hand, and I pulled him up the hill.

May I always extend a hand of forgiveness and compassion.  May I not be the reason that someone fears an open hand. Amen.

Just Another Manic Monday

So here I am, sitting innocently in Pharmacology class, trying desperately to pay attention and frantically filling out notecards from the powerpoint information in an effort to stay conscious, when that wheedling voice in the back of my head suggested that I take a short mental break during an extended discussion on beta 2 agonists and check facebook and email.

The first three status updates on facebook were from three of the missionaries I worked with this summer. After stalking each of their profiles in turn to make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything (as if there is anything I could do about it if I were…), I then found myself following a link off of Amy’s page to a beautifully written note that one of her daughters had posted. Thirty seconds later I got a chat from Belgium, and then one from Zambia, and then another from Zambia. I pulled up email on the side in an effort to multitask. In one of my classes, we all email our essays to each other for peer review. I had read most of them last night since they were due by midnight, but a few came in late.  One was about the apathy and frustration of a kid trapped in college while his heart calls him to the mission field. At this point, the familiar restlessness that I've worked so hard to suppress began to stir.

Then, because it was 8:20 on a Monday morning and I had not yet had my weekly Monday Disaster, I accidentally knocked over my bottle of Coke.  I scrambled out of the room (barefoot, because I had kicked my shoes off and didn’t take the time to put them back on…) and darted out the door to grab some napkins. Some lady was walking down the hallway with a little girl who was maybe two years old, so naturally I forgot all about the coke dripping off of my laptop and stopped to compliment her on her pigtails (the toddler, not the lady…).

Upon skidding back into the classroom, I realized that Coca-Cola is a frustratingly sticky concoction and I should have brought some wet towels as well.  Too late.  I blotted it up as well as I could and stared fixedly at the front wall, hoping my face broadcasted something to the effect of, “Of course I’m paying attention…”

But then I realized that we were now talking about stool softeners, which is tough for anyone to stomach (no pun intended…) before 9 on a Monday morning—even nursing students.

So I decided to blog instead.

(Disclaimer: I really am a good student, I promise… But we all have our days…)

When I pulled up Blogger to type this up, I first checked my blog stats.  I’m always fascinated by what backed posts people look at throughout the week.  This week’s leader is “Babies Know Best.”  It’s been a few weeks since I posted that one and I couldn’t really remember what it was about, so I pulled it up to reread it.  That didn’t help my restlessness at all.

Now it’s Convo hour (which, for you non-Bruins, is just a one-hour period on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday where we can accumulate Convo credits, which are graduation requirements, by sitting through often-pointless programs and presentations). If I was a good little Bruin, I would scurry off to some program or another. But I’m not. I’m Meg. So I’m going to climb a tree instead.

It’s Monday, folks. Have a beautiful week.