There was something that my pastor said this past Sunday that gave me an “AHA” moment. It wasn’t even something that he was emphasizing, it wasn’t even a point on his message. But it was about change. He said that when leading change, you also need to lead people through the grief over change. People are moving away from their normal, their comfort zone, their security. Even though the forthcoming change may be a brighter and better chapter in his or her life, it requires that we let go of what we once held on to, it requires moving away from what we were once comfortable with. And that, that is not an easy thing to do for anyone. So that got me thinking over the last few months and the change that I was experiencing in my life, the grief I was apparently in and the hesitancy I had over embracing the change I was going through. I had not realized that the sadness I was feeling was attributed to this change in my life, but reflecting back on it, I realize that’s exactly what was happening. Friends left and right were starting to work. I thought that I…

I am a person that likes to run on empty. Growing up, I was the type to keep giving and volunteering and helping. At church, I was always in the kitchen the morning before service prepping for communion, or upstairs in the media booth projecting the slides for worship. At home, I was cleaning the house by myself, doing the laundry and ironing everyone’s clothes. When I was playing basketball, I was the first one to practice, the first one to be ready and warming up, and the last one to leave the court, getting in as many shots as I could before I was kicked off. At school, I was volunteering for everything. I did the work no one wanted to do, I made sure everyone was happy and okay, I made sure everything was running smoothly even if my mind was bouncing off the walls. I’m a giver, a worker, a fixer, a mediator, and almost always, I am overwhelmed, tired, and frustrated. That is the complex that I have, and as a nurse I’ve realized that a personality like that won’t last long. I’m always giving and giving, and my cup is already always being depleted. Regardless…

Guess what? I have a job. PCA position, not an RN position though. I took the opportunity anyway and it’s a step into a good teaching hospital. I’ll most likely transition into their RN positions in a couple months into their ICU and step-down units, floors that I have a sincere interest in. While working as PCA, I can reinforce some nursing fundamentals and learn to appreciate the nursing assistant staff as well. Either way, the experiences will only make me a better nurse. It’s not what I had in mind at all, but I trust that this all happening for a good reason. It’s absolutely crazy what God is doing in my life. I still can’t figure out what He really wants me to do. But slowly, all of the things He’s laying out in my life are starting to come to fruition. This hospital has a program that I’ve been looking at for about a year now. I have the feeling that I might be heading towards that direction for my career path and nursing niche. I definitely have to pray about it. It’s a big commitment and an incredibly small niche in nursing. It’s something I have to be…

If you disappeared tomorrow, without a trace, without a notice, without a warning… who would look for you? Could you do it? Could you leave the life you know for a life that isn’t so secure? I was reading Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love” again and a different message hit me with a different impact. If God called you to leave your home, your friends, loved ones… your comfort zone… and brought you to a completely foreign land with no one to rely on but God himself, would you do it? If He asked you to leave without even letting anyone know, could you do it? To be completely honest, I have to say that right now, I want to. I really do. But I know that it’s easier to say it than to actually do it. Realistically, my mom would flip out. And she would totally track me down. Even if I told her I was following the will of God, I still think she would call me crazy and slap me up side the head as an instinctive reaction before realizing what exactly my actions entail. I’m sure my Dad would too. If you think about it though, isn’t our…

If there was anything superficial I could change about myself, it would be my name. See, my birth name is Alyssa Marie. And it’s not Alyssa like Alyssa Milano either, it’s Alyssa pronounced “Ah-lie-sah.” Yes, I’ve had a lifetime of correcting teachers, professors, and classmates. My co-workers called my “Eh-Lee-Sah” for a whole year too even after correcting them. At one point I totally got tired of it and started thinking that people can call me whatever the heck they want as long as they knew my face. But growing up, I’ve always been known as Sasha, and it’s the name I’ve loved and the name I fully identify with. In any typical Filipino family, nicknames are common. Usually, nicknames stem from the original name, for example, Caroline would be “Lin-Lin” and so on and so forth. But my name is seriously a stretch. My Dad told me in thinking of my nickname, he took it from the stem of my name, took the “-sa,” thought that “Sa-Sa” sounded off, and decided to just call me Sasha. Ta-Da! Like magic. If I had a choice, I wish that everyone called me Sasha. I wish my closest friends could call me…