Transitioning

Whether I realized it or not, the past week consisted of one beginning after another. I started my new job today (an RN position at a hospital).* On Sunday, I went to a meeting about serving at our church (super excited about that!) and I attended a new monthly meeting with the women of our church designed to encourage us, challenge us, and strengthen community among the women of our church. My heart is feeling so refreshed.

All of those things are welcome transitions. Previously, I've written about being patient about finding community, so it's so neat to see bits of that falling into place. I've also written about working to find a purpose in my downtime, and although this next new stage of life is largely unfamiliar to me, I'm expecting it will involve more remembering the purpose of my work. Practically, I'll be re-learning what it's like to work full-time, although this time around, I'll be working longer shifts fewer days a week, and I'll be working nights. As with anything new, I'm anticipating some moments where I'll feel overwhelmed. I'll be mulling over this verse:

When my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the Rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61.2

Aside from the new, big stuff in life, we've been doing the following:

• (us) Discussing dog breeds. Every day. We are hopelessly bent on getting a dog soon(ish)
• (us) Planning our next camping trip—this weekend!
• (us) Disc-golfing (we just discovered a really, really fun course about 3 minutes from home)
• (me) talking coffee (home brewing methods, cuppings, and small lot and/or single origin coffee) with the baristas at a local coffee shop. I really miss being a barista! In light of those conversations, I think I decided that this coffee shop is my favorite—friendly, approachable staff and they do coffee so well.
• (me) knitting
• (me) re-decorating our bulletin board for fall, which involved writing out some new-to-me quotes
• (us) making this naan to go with soup. Bonus: the leftovers are great for sandwich "wraps" in our lunches the next day.
• (me) Playing around with gluten-free waffle recipes (I plan to post one at some point!)

Even as I'm settling into a very different routine, I will continue to post regularly. Life will look a little different for us in this season as I start the transition to nights in a few weeks but I'm so excited about the new position, and I'm comforted by these words from Charles Spurgeon:

Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little, you are put there by [God], because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection. Remember this, had any other condition been better for you that the one in which you are, Divine Love would have put you there .[...] Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good.

*You may notice that I don't spend much (if any) time discussing my nursing career here. I don't mean to be cryptic and I really enjoy a lot about my work as a Registered Nurse, but mostly, I prefer to use this space to talk about other things that I'm really passionate about (i.e. home life, marriage, my faith, cooking, etc.).