To Simply Wait

All throughout nursing school, people are constantly complimenting and encouraging your career choice: family, friends, teachers, clinical faculty, even acquaintances. It’s always something along the lines of, “Oh, that’s a great field!” or “Good for you, they always need more nurses!” and my personal favorite, “You’ll always have a job!”

What they don’t tell you, though, is that if you’re a new grad all bets are off.

The other day I woke up to not one—not two—but FIVE rejection emails from some of the various hospitals I applied to the day before. Since graduation I’ve submitted upwards of 100 job applications with nothing to show for it.

Aaron and I are extremely blessed in that we aren’t in immediate need of a second income, so my finding a job isn’t urgent in that respect. You’d think that after 4 long, challenging years of nursing school, time off would be a welcome respite. But I’m just beginning to realize exactly how much of my identity has been found in nursing and in my working hard in school. Now, with school behind me and no prospective jobs on the horizon, I’ve found myself feeling strangely worthless. All throughout school I was constantly complaining about the workload and how I couldn’t wait to be finished—and now that I am, I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve really been wrestling with God lately about my job hunt having been futile thus far. It’s frustrating and discouraging, and even with my BSN and RN licensure I still feel under-qualified. However, despite the disappointment, I’m still so confident that God is at work in my heart.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

-       As I mentioned before, I’ve realized exactly how much I’ve identified myself in my accomplishments and my working toward something. While I think it’s good to be motivated and for good workmanship to be an important part of my personality, realizing this has provided me with the perfect opportunity to refocus. The Lord has been using this to remind me that my identity should not be in what I accomplish—my identity is in Christ alone. By identifying myself in my work and my accomplishments (and coincidentally, the lack thereof), I subject myself to inevitable feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, and failure. But when my identity is in Christ, the exact opposite is true. In Him, I

-      - am completely forgiven (Eph. 4:32)

-       -have the life of Jesus (Col. 2:9)

-       -am free (Gal 2:4)

-       -am dearly loved (Col. 3:12)

-       -am chosen (Col. 3:12)

-       -am adopted into the family of God (Eph. 1:5)

-       -have wisdom (1 Cor. 4:10)

-       -have hope (1 Cor. 15:19)

-       -am alive (1 Cor. 15:22)

-       -am near to God (Eph. 2:13)

-       -can’t be separated from the love of God (Rom. 8:39)

-       -am holy (Col. 3:12)

-       -am made righteous (Phil. 3:9)

-       -have every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3)

-       -am made new (2 Cor. 5:17)

-       -have been made complete (1 John 2:5)

-       -have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16)

-       -am God’s handiwork created for good works (Eph. 2:10)

-       -have peace with God (Phil. 4:7)

-       -have the power of Jesus (2 Tim. 1:7)

-       -am free from sin’s power (Rom. 6:11)

And so, God is showing me to adjust my mindset. Rather than identifying myself as Kaila Norris, RN, BSN who happens to be a follower of Christ, I am a child of the living God who happens to be a new graduate RN in the market for a job.

The Lord is slowly but surely transforming my discouragement into a greater knowledge of who I am in Him. And rather than seeing this season of life simply as one of unemployment, I'm beginning to see it as an opportunity to simply sit still in His presence and learn what he He has to teach me.