Pink Ribbons and Stethoscopes

I am not even sure that I know how to start this post. It's about guilt or somewhat. I understand that the situation in Haiti is dire. That there are needs all across this world in very impoverished areas. The images we see are horrifying. They're gut wrenching and they often have the effect of making people want to get up from their couch/desk chair/church pew and be somebody or do something. But not me.

I have a passion for ill people whether it be, mental, physical or emotional, that's why I want to be a nurse. But I don't want to see it every single day. I feel guilty that I look away when a church I go to plays an emotional video of the situation in Haiti. Or when I see the commercials for Toms shoes. I feel like for some reason I should be there slaving away in a dirty shirt and jean shorts helping them and deep down, I don't want to. I don't want to live in Africa or Haiti and tend to the sick and ill there every day.

I want to serve the children in the hospitals here in America. I want to be able to go home to my nice house with my beautiful children and husband. Maybe I will take a missions trip to these other places but for some reason I am so scared that God will one day call me to live there or something, and I don't want that. One reason is because I know Maury would never go with me. It's not that he doesn't want to help it's that Africa isn't his style and it's certainly not mine either.

I am all of the sudden (as I am typing this) recalling a sermon by the pastor of the church that I attend regularly. He said that when he became a Christian the devil would make him feel guilty about the ways in which he expressed his faith. He felt guilty and felt obligated to carry his Bible everywhere he went and while he was at school if the Bible was covered by another book or in his bag or something, where people couldn't see it, he would hear a voice saying he wasn't a true Christian. He went as far as stopping, regularly, on the side of the road to talk to strangers and the homeless about Jesus. He felt "called" to do extreme things and if he wasn't doing them, then he wasn't truly serving the Lord.

Maybe this is my situation. I know I am called to help Children I just want it to be here. There is no sense in worrying about the future because all we really have is today right?

"For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not harm you. To give you hope and future."