At The Half Way With CPE

So I've completed half of my internship as a chaplain now, and the past 6 weeks have been quite the journey. While I very much enjoy the ministry I'm doing in the hospital, I have to say... when it rains it pours! When I'm on-call I get worked! Yesterday was my first weekend on call, and I spent a total of 8 hours at the hospital. After having spent 5 hours in the morning helping a family with a viewing I was able to go home for about an hour and a half before getting paged back to the hospital. On my drive to the hospital I received another page from the hospital this time from the Emergency Department. So I say... when it rains it pours because I seem to get paged in waves. Things seem to happen in twos even though I can only be in one place at a time. Thankfully everything worked out! I have a great supervisor who welcomes calls at any hour when we need help! So she made some calls and was able to help take care of one of the situations, while I spent time with a family at the Emergency Department. 

I have another 5 weeks of this internship, and God has continually given me the strength to carry on when things seem so difficult. I really like working as a chaplain, but I'm still not certain if this is something I want to do with my life. I do feel like God could be calling me in that direction, but for now I'll take it one day at a time and finish this internship before I make any decisions! 

There are definitely things I dislike about this type of ministry... 1) I don't like waking up in the middle of the night to go into the hospital, 2) I don't like getting called back to the hospital when I just pulled out of the parking lot, and 3) There are simply some situations that no one really wants to have to deal with. (But I still do it)

But regardless of those things there are still plenty of things that I love about this ministry... 1) the smiles on peoples faces when they look at me in the midst of their dying and tell me they are going to see Jesus, 2) The joy I hear in people's voices when they tell me they feel like God is with them, and 3) The feeling I get inside knowing that even in the pain and suffering I see glimpses of God's beauty in the hospital. 

If you think of me... please pray for discernment as I approach the last 5 weeks of this internship. And also that God would continue to strengthen me in this ministry.