I have become a bit overwhelmed lately. I have had two new responsibilities added to me at work. Don’t get me wrong, they are a blessing, but I have become angry and stressed lately. The other day I looked up the word, stress, in the dictionary and was horrified to find my anxiety ridden face right beside the word.

So what has happened at work? I got “blessed.”

The first blessing that was given to me was when my company asked me to be a preceptor. That is a wonderful compliment and I was thrilled to do it. My first trainee has been a gem and I love her like a best friend.

I may have taken this preceptor thing a bit too far though. I call my trainee every night to see how she is doing. She calls me frequently too. I probably won’t do this with every nurse I train but I really love this girl and I want her to be successful.

Then very soon after being asked to be a preceptor, I was given the blessing of working out of three new facilities. In the arena of home health working in a facility is a dream job.

I have just one problem. The company has not decreased my former responsibility. I still do visits out in the community and that takes so much time in driving that I am not able to build the facilities up like I want to.

So how have I handled this? I must admit I have done a horrible job of handling this. I have bitched and complained and my joy has evaporated.

I have not felt the presence of God like I did when I first started this job. Why did He retreat? Was it because the blessings that I was given pushed Him plum off of my overflowing plate? I don’t think so. I am constantly in prayer and He knows that I love Him. I think it was because instead of being thankful for the added blessings and challenges I have become ungrateful and a complaining wench. I failed to realize that they couldn’t have added these new responsibilities to my plate without it sifting through His loving hands first.

He knows what I can do and he knows how competent I am. He is the one who makes every day a day worth living. He knows each and every patient I am to see and He has given me the privilege of serving them.

I have been so busy complaining, that I have failed to talk with Him about my desire to build the facilities up in census. I have not told Him how frustrated I am that I have been too busy to meet the manager of two of the facilities. I have not asked Him to help me make up a list of criteria for home health admissions which I can give to the marketing director for the managers in the facilities.

I have talked to everyone else about how stressed I am, failing to mention it to Him. I have not told him how much I hate driving clear across town for one patient when I could be seeing five patients in that amount of time in the facilities.

What a fool I have become.

God was on this though, like a bee on honey. He showed me in the Bible the verse in Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.”

This does not mean that I can not express my desire to work mainly out of the facilities. It makes sense for me to build those facilities up. It would mean a financial gain for me but it would be a gold mine for the company. What it does mean is that I state my case with concise and logical thought process behind it and that I don’t do it in a state of anxiety or fear.

What if my company doesn’t listen?

Then I just pray harder and wait patiently because I know “He only wants to prosper me and not to harm me.”