I went into all of this praying that God would show me where I should be in relation to nursing. At least so far, I feel confident that he'll provide those answers. All I know right now is that I'm having fun and not paralyzed by fear of misstep. I tell myself as long as they'll put up with me and I keep getting the support from friends like the ones I've made so far (Lariam, stress, and sleep-induced neurosis notwithstanding), i'm pretty sure God has some fantastic nursing ahead of me! There's nothing magic here, but I do suddenly feel relevant to a team of Godly workers. Weird. I like it. Honestly, my biggest fear is that they'll give me more credit than I deserve. What if they get frustrated when I continue asking "do what? with what? why? how?" What if I miss something important? Sure, the numbers don't scare me anymore (well, with the exceptions of the ones that should scare me), but every year I learn how much I don't know. It's a particularly harsh battle for me.

It has always been this way. Every success I tell myself, "well good, you're finally getting it right. It's about time." And every failure big or small I tell myself, "when will you finally get it right? Maybe you're not fit for this work." I feel like an impostor, no matter how many times I hear, "You're intelligent! You're going to get this and be great!" Self doubt. It's not healthy. God doesn't want it.

And then I remember, it's not about me. It never was about me. We are here to be the hands and face of God. my shortcomings will be picked up by the rest of the team- I'm learning to trust that they graciously will. I should let them. As frustrating as I might sometimes be, it's not as often as I fear, and we're all here to be in the floating hospital off the coast of Africa because God has called us individually here and we answered with an undeniable "yes!" To live and work in community. His community.

So yeah, I'm going to fail at work sometimes. I'm going to spend a lot of time making connections and being taught by amazing medical staff. But I'm still an important part of this team and gosh darn it, people like me! ;) What more permission do I need to loosen up and enjoy being a nurse?

So where do I stand in relation to nursing outside of my hospital on a ship in Africa? How does this translate to all the questions waiting for me back home? I don't know. But I've just been here a week, and I'm going to consciously set that aside for a while. For the next few months, I'm going to enjoy learning how to be a nurse on a floating hospital off the coast of Western Africa. I'm going to enjoy it because for the first time, I believe God has me nursing for a reason.