never-ending game of Twister

This morning I texted Jake, "So all of the planned cases for today have cancelled or no-showed, yet we still have three cases." Paraphrasing his response, "life in missions summed up in a single sentence."

My ponderings kept returning to that throughout the day as we worked our way through a c-section, followed by an appendectomy and finally by an internal fixation of a broken tibia bone. I can appreciate a day with only three cases, as those cases can be undertaken and completed easily within working hours. That doesn't always happen...

But that's life in the mission field. In the United States, there are relatively clear divisions in terms of work responsibilities or social and community responsibilities. In the mission field those constructs around what you do and don't do are built largely by yourself. If you wait for someone else to automatically respect something you haven't taken the effort to build, consider it invisible and you find yourself without any limitations. Which, history has repeatedly demonstrated that is an arrow-straight path to burnout, disappointment and hurt.

The flexibility vs self-care theme is an on-going and incredibly complex topic. My personal process is unfortunately trial-and-error, in which I seem to run smack-dab into error on repeat. I trust God when he brings a patient and asks me to take care of them. But that being said, I can bend down and touch my toes. Not everyone is that flexible, and I need a whole team to care for each patient. When the scaffolding or constructs I'm attempting to piece together deviates from those next to me, how do we recognize and remedy that? Do we all start our mornings with yoga to increase flexibility or do I stop?

No easy answer, and no pain-free solution. The red dots will never be next to the green dots on the mission game of Twister.

I was asked if I would like to join a sunrise swim. Definitely stretching for me, and working on my flexibility, but the blessing was above and beyond.

Much Love.