Battling Giants

Have you ever been in a situation that you felt was impossible?

I've been in such a situation lately. I was supposed to start a new job on August 1. I'd been given the final you're hired (conditionally to passing an Immigration customs enforcement background check) near the middle of July. They called me in 4 days before I was to start to help them prepare for an audit. So I juggled the job I was still working, while coming in as many hours as possible to help out. I was given a bunch of polices all printed and in disarray and a CD and told to put all the policies, with the corresponding forms, into a binder. I finally set aside the printed papers because they were a mess (missing pages, in no kind of order, etc.) and just printed everything out and organized into a large binder. I'd also been given some standards on which we were going to be judged so I went through those and wrote down corresponding policies that we had, and well as ones we did not have and questions.

Then I went through a one week general orientation that everyone who will be working there went through. This orientation was a welcome-to-working-in-a-correctional-setting kind of training. Then I went through 2 days of learning an over view of each department in the facility. Then I was handed that binder that I'd put together (only it was about half the size of what I'd put together because someone had taken out a LOT of the policies and forms) and told that supplies had been ordered so myself and my team needed to figure out how we wanted to set things up as they came in and to get ready and train my team and set it all up. I kept asking for a list of what was ordered and finally got one 2 days before we opened (all in all we had 4 weeks prior to opening; 1 of which was spent in that general orientation, 2 days on site and then I had 13 days with my team; half of which came in a week later then the initial group). The list I was given did not include but half of what myself, an ER RN and a wound care LVN could figure we'd need. So I set about trying to get the other needful items ordered. I kept asking the man who hired me questions since I really didn't understand the set up but he was vague and never really told me anything.

Then we opened on August 29.

Fortunately my boss' boss came in on August 29 and began showing me the company systems. The problem was that at that point I was both doing the job and learning the job along with my entire staff who were in the same situation. Also, this woman had her own job she was doing while giving some time to me. To say that it's been crazy would be an understatement. I worked all of Labor Day weekend because my thought was that if my boss' boss was there and willing to teach me, I'd take all I could get from her. She left on Wednesday the 7th. I still do not know all the systems, am not sure if we have all the supplies we need, am still learning the policies (a 4-inch binder of them), and have found that many policies simply say that the H.S.A. (who is me) will make the site specific procedures. Add to this that the physician is over the top difficult to work with and talks a LOT so it's difficult to get work accomplished, plus he orders a bunch of unnecessary tests and sends people out inappropriately, all of which makes a lot more work for the rest of the medical team. In the midst of this our nurse practitioner went off on sick leave for 8 days.

Basically, it all just feels like too much. As if I'm under a pile from which I do not see myself (or really anyone else if they were given the exact same circumstances) having the ability to create order and stability.

So I'm meditating on Jesus' words from Matthew 18:27:

Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Sure I know that he was specifically referring to salvation in this passage. But I think there's a principle that can be lifted out here about how our God can do what we can not. So, since I know that God gave me this job, and that He desires me to bring Him glory, then I'm choosing to believe that He will give me the abilities beyond what I have in the natural to bring this all together. I'm counting on Him for stamina and endurance, mental ability and wisdom, and for me to get things done no matter how many new obstacles keep coming my way.

My husband John keeps reminding me that Joshua and Caleb had to take the promised land; they didn't just get to walk into it, they had battle giants to enter into what God had for them. Perhaps all these problems are my giants to battle.

What about you, do you have any giants in your life right now that you're looking to God to do the impossible regarding?