Kristi's Christmas Story

Here's my story of Christmas morning that I promised I would blog about.

I worked an 8 hour night shift from 11:30pm on Christmas Eve until the morning of Christmas Day. My shift was supposed to end at 7:45am but I didn't end up getting out of the hospital until 9:10am.

This is why.

The shift was going pretty well. I had a nice recovery room assignment when I came on. There was a little lull after I transferred my patient, which was nice. I was hoping that it would stay that way =) Then I got a laboring patient.

I anticipated a quick delivery, but it came quicker than I expected when that baby was finally ready to come. I found myself quickly delivering that baby on my own, with just the mom and myself in the room and when I had the baby in my right hand, crying and safe, I pulled the emergency call bell with my left to notify my fellow nurses that I was in need of some assistance!

In the midst of the excitement of delivery, I got soaked....and I mean SOAKED...with amniotic fluid. It got in my right eye, on my glasses, my face, in my mouth and all over my clothes. Yucky!

Needless to say, I spent the next few hours in Emergency on Christmas morning. I had to get paperwork and blood drawn because of being exposed in a big way to body fluids from a patient. By 8:00am I was getting frustrated in Emerg just waiting for the confusion of what needed to be done to get sorted out. So, I went upstairs back to the ward to get it figured out myself.

In the frustration of something that should have taken minutes instead taking hours of my time on Christmas morning when my husband was waiting for me to open presents and I wanted to get to bed at a decent hour....I cried. Out of frustration.

It ended up being fine! I got home somewhere around 9:30am and immediately showered, before letting Shane greet me with kiss. I needed to wash off any remaining amniotic fluid! Then we opened presents, called the family and ate cinnamon buns for breakfast. It was nice!

I got to bed later than I'd hoped but still got a good sleep before waking up to spend the evening with my husband and siblings!

Yikes...Merry Christmas to me! That was quite the present!

Christmas Festivities!

Here's a quick play by play of our Christmas festivities this month!

#1 - December 13 started out our gatherings with Christmas at my mom's! It was fun, relaxing and such a lovely time with my mom, hubbie and siblings!


Blindfolding mom and escorting her to her gift!


The fabulous four!


My beautiful family!

#2 - December 24, in between night shifts, we had Christmas Eve with Shane's family!


Our beautiful niece, Raign, who is the life of the party and just turned one!


Shane opening his big present of the year!


Yeah! A playstation 3 much to his delight! A gift from multiple family members!



When we got home at 10:15pm on Christmas Eve, Shane "let" me open one of my Christmas presents before heading to work for the night!



My handsome husband and I on Christmas Eve!



#3 - Christmas Day morning with my hubbie and Christmas Day Supper with my siblings! Christmas morning was a story in itself that will have to be a blog entry unto its own soon!



Since dating and marrying Shane, stockings have become a part of Christmas time for me! I like them!




Then came Christmas Day supper with the fabulous four! Complete with a great supper, gift exchange and Elf for the second time this season!



Steph was pretty excited about our matching sister pjs!


Shaun's "ugly hat like Stephanie's" that he requested!


Our matching pjs!



Off to another night shift! Had to miss the Christmas sleepover...too bad!

#4 - Christmas at Dad's with my hubbie, siblings, dad and Rose (dad's girlfriend).


A silly picture!


Dad and Rose



Being silly with the sibs! How can you tell physical touch is one of the top love languages of all three of us?



#5 - Christmas with the Doerksens (mom's side of the extended family) was today. My mom is one of 9 kids and those are fun gatherings with so many of us! We got to go skating, much to my hubbie's delight!

#6 - Christmas with Shane's extended family is for lunch tomorrow!

#7 - Christmas with the Reimers (dad's side of the extended family) is for supper tomorrow. I am heading to the gathering on behalf of Shane and I, and Shane is holding the fort at Sanctuary on our behalf!

#8 - New Year's Gathering with the Giesbrechts (my mom's mom's side of the extended, extended family) is on New Year's Day. We will be skipping this one, as you can see, we have too many gatherings!

We are done 5 and have 2 more tomorrow! This time of the year is nuts! And on top of these gatherings, I worked 6 out of 8 nights in the last week! Crazy!

I am so thankful that I have so much family to love and enjoy! I love my family!

Working the Week Away...

Merry Christmas to all very soon!

So, we've arrived at the Christmas week for 2008. I'm working a ton this week and have a ton of gatherings to boot, making this week a little insane in our home this year.

The best thing about working Christmas is knowing that I'm off next year!

I finished three 12-hour nights Sunday morning. It was a nice weekend with enjoyable shifts and a beautiful birth an hour before home time that finished off the weekend well.

I've been pretty tired in the last 48 hours since getting off work. I've been sleeping a lot! I think my body knew what I needed more than my brain did!

So, tonight, I'm back at it. I work a 12 hour night tonight (23rd to 24th), sleep all day tomorrow and head over to Shane's parents for Christmas Eve in the evening. Then off to work for an 8 hour night (woo! hoo! only 8 hours!) from the 24th to the 25th. Shane and I will have a little celebration when I get home the morning of the 25th. Off to sleep I go, to awake to Christmas dinner with Shane and my siblings. Then back to work I go for one more 8 hour night from the 25th to the 26th. Again, I will sleep part of the day on the 26th before heading to my dad's for our gathering.

I also have extended family gatherings on the 27th and the 28th! Whew! Then the gatherings are over for us, as we are missing another one on the 28th and one on the 1st!

If I can make it through this week, I'll be smooth sailing! Knowing that half of my night shifts are over for the week, makes the last half seem like it's going to be alright! Especially since 2 of the 3 are 8 hour shifts instead of 12! That is such a blessing over Christmas, or I wouldn't have made hardly any gatherings over Christmas!

Thankfully, there has been a ton of grace in the area of work. It has greatly helped that God gave me the heads up back in the summer and fall that the next season of my life would be intense in the work arena. So, in this season of my life, I'm clinging to Haggai 2:4 "'Yet now be strong, Kristi, and work for I am with you' says the Lord of hosts".

With great delight and relief, I can report that I have quite an increased amount of joy and peace when I'm working! I have been enjoying my job and there has been so much grace from the Lord for me to meet Him and rest in Him in the midst of working insane hours, getting minimal relaxing time and specific "God time" during my stretches on and pouring myself out for others that need me in the hospital. He is so faithful to meet us in each season, whether they are easy or hard, enjoyable or difficult.

That being said, Merry Christmas to you all! If you think of me this week, I'd totally appreciate a prayer for increased joy and grace during a pretty insane week, when I'd prefer to be at home with friends and family over the holidays!

Girl's Day!

We had our annual Christmas Girls Day on Monday at Pine Ridge Hollow! It is a fun time of year! We've gone to Pine Ridge Hollow for the last 5 Christmases to celebrate!

I've spent many of these past years in the same dress =) So, after last year's visit to Pine Ridge, I decided that next year I would need something new to wear. So I got a new dress this year! And my first pair of heels...which are difficult to walk on!



3 out of 5 years one of the gals has been pregnant! We've made it a tradition to take a shot of the prego of the group! It's Shauna's turn this year! She's such a cute prego!


The rest of the pics are ones of my beautiful girlfriends from many different areas of my life!






And my favorite...


Merry Christmas!

God's Pleasure

I am continuing in my pursuit to know the heart of God as my Father. In the process, I have listened to more teachings in the series I mentioned last post, by Billy Humphrey from IHOP-Atlanta. So good!

This morning's teaching led me to meditate on Psalm 16:3 "As for the saints who are on the earth, "They are my excellent ones, in whom is all my delight". "

It is absolutely incredible that all of the Father's delight in wrapped up in humans! I delight the heart of God! I move His emotions and when I say yes, turn my face to Him and my heart moves towards His, He is utterly moved with emotion.

We are so limited in our experience of pure pleasure. In general, the word pleasure brings illegitimate and sinful experiences to mind more than true, pure pleasures that we have experienced.

But, the truth is that in His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). God is the creator of pleasure! He experiences pleasure and delights when we do too!

The God who is love wants to be loved in return. And, even more, when we give love to the Father, He experiences pleasure! His heart experiences pure delight from the love that we give Him!

What's more, the pleasure He feels must be incredible! It is out of this world. We have so many hindrances here on earth to experiencing the fullness of His pleasure. He doesn't have any of these barriers, but experiences the fullest, purest form of pleasure there ever could be....simply when I whisper that I love Him!

The revelation of His desire, pleasure and delight in me causes me to want to love Him more. When I think of Him as angry, detached, or stoic in nature, I want to run the other way and instead give Him my love in a way that consistently first disclaimers my sin and weakness before approaching Him. No way! We are supposed to approach the throne with boldness!

I want to draw nearer and nearer when I know that the Father I love is a glad, delighted, desiring, pleased Father. There is nothing that I have to do to gain His approval. I already have it! I already bring Him pleasure! That makes me want to whisper I love you more frequently throughout my day, knowing that it both brings me and my Father pleasure!

We move His heart!

Ahhh....

I have a very peaceful home this afternoon. It is lovely...

As I type, my under-the-weather hubbie is resting on the couch, the lights are shining from the Christmas tree, it is peacefully quiet in our apartment, supper is smelling great from the slow cooker and my heart is growing in love.

I'm still in my pjs which is exactly the kind of day I needed.

I had a great time listening to a teaching on the Father Heart of God by Billy Humphreys this afternoon. The Lord is highlighting the topic of His heart as my Father to me and it's been tough but good these last few weeks. I think this is a pivotal time period for my heart and for my history in God.

I've been really tired lately and having a hard time getting out of bed in the mornings. I keep sleeping past my alarm these days. It could be a combo of things...shift work, late nights, coming off the Global Bridegroom Fast, etc.

But, it has revealed to me that I really need to learn to rest in God. Whether I have times of rest in my schedule or it's busy, I want to rest on the inside. I have felt busy on the inside lately. It doesn't matter what's required of me in this season with my time. I want to rest in the Lord and trust in Him, silencing the clutter in my head and heart. Today was good for this. Listening, praying, reading and resting were exactly what I needed.

Tomorrow begins my work week bright and early. I'm working 12 hour days Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This means I'm missing a lot of Sanctuary things this weekend, which is too bad, but that just the way it is right now. Some day things will be different. I just want to be faithful in each season, faithfully tending to the things that God has put on my plate for the time being.