I start my shift in 30 minutes. At home, I would be making my lunch, brushing my teeth, and trying to get out the door in time to miss the parking garage backup. Here, I am lying in bed, not dressed for work, starting this post. I still won't be late. Benefits of living where I work.

Life has settled into a semi-routine here. Bootcamp in the mornings, crew meetings, work, dinner in the café, bible study Sunday nights, hospital education meetings Wednesday nights. Amidst all of that is time spent talking with friends, occasional outings off the ship, and trying to make my way through my endless reading list.

One of the things I had the hardest time adjusting to here was the pace at work. The patients here are much less critically ill than those at home, sometimes requiring little more than a few days of Tylenol after their surgery. I struggled with this being 'all' that I was called to here. As I voiced this in my quiet times, surrendering this desire to be needed, I was able to see the days were so full of moments that I have been called into.

It's walking down the hospital corridor on my night off to see where the drumming and singing is coming from. Then scooping up a baby and joining the dance party with 20 patients, their caregivers, nurses, and day workers as if this is normal.

It's watching a scared 4 year old transform from hiding under the covers in her bed, screaming whenever you come near, to the one who bursts into a smile and runs to you with arms up, ready to be held.

It's watching a patient see herself with a smile that looks like everyone else's after 24 years.

It's seeing Emmanuel's momma out on the dock at his follow up visit. Unable to understand each other, but her smile and her hug where communication enough. (Emmanuel was MIA, because he is a very busy, happy, healthy 3 year old now)

It's a team of nurses, who have only known each other for a short time, helping each other out and being there in those more critical moments (because we do have some of those).

It's that giving Tylenol around the clock after a cleft lip/palate surgery not only means a restful night, but is part of the start to a new life. A life where this small one will never know that they are different, will never be made fun of by their friends or punished by their teachers for talking funny, and will be able to go to school. And their parents will no longer carry this burden.

It's an email from a friend at home describing her recent hospital experience. How she saw Jesus, not in the critical tasks that the nurses were doing, but in their faces, in the moments that they were there to reassure her and comfort.

It's choosing each day, each moment, wherever I am to be all there.

"For we should rejoice in being seen, needed, loved- but it's not the foundation on which to build a life."- Melanie Benjamin

These are the moments on which to build a life.