The caseload of a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) in a rehab hospital is destined to vary. With staffing based on hospital averages, there are always a few rare moments when my fellow SLPs and I actually have time to work on outside projects and community awareness. Most of the time, however, we are running at full-capacity, scrambling to give our clients the services they need.
Then there are the other times when the caseloads rise to the point that our best combined efforts only barely put band-aids on the SLP needs in our hospital, and this was just one of those times. I was beside myself as yet another stack of referrals came in. I knew I couldn’t do justice to all the ones I would be asked to see, and I knew the other SLPs were just as overwhelmed, if not more so, than I! I couldn’t help but panic.
As I drove home that evening, God had a long talk with me about my panic. Then He gave me a powerful message through a song: God my Rock! (Check it out at the following link by clicking here!)
This quickly became my theme song, and I was literally beaming when I went to work the next day. The song stayed on my lips all day, through a myriad of new referrals and busyness, through all of the guilt of not being able to give my clients as much time as they needed, and I actually left work on time.
God my Rock!
I went straight to the Toyota dealer after work, to pick up my 11 year-old Echo that had been in for service. Imagine my horror to learn that it would need 2500$ of repairs, mostly to the front axle, to make it save to drive! I must admit that distress once again knocked on my heart’s door as I drove home, but praise be to God, He held me together.
God my Rock!
I was only home a few moments when my son left. I didn’t even have the chance to tell him to take his dad’s car instead of mine, and not ten minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was my son, calling to tell me that he had just chosen the preferable alternative to a head-on collision and had put my car in the ditch.
Praise God, he wasn’t hurt. The other car, who had been driving down the middle of the road, was also untouched, and according to my son, other than the fact that the tire had popped off the wheel, my car was undamaged.
God my Rock!
Things at work only got worse that Thursday and Friday, but somehow, between my intern and myself, the critical cases got seen, my clients were all put on their appropriate diet textures, and the paperwork all got done.
God my Rock!
I was, however, looking forward to a stress-less weekend. I figured I deserved it! Then came the call from my dear mother: “I’m so sick!”
I googled her symptoms and was shocked to learn that she could possibly be having a heart attack! I drove straight to the hospital, but it was 11:00 at night before we learned she would stay overnight due to some other tests they wanted to run in the morning. Though in the end it was nothing more than a very bad case of reflux, so much for my stress-less weekend!
God My Rock!
As I write this, I am amazed to realize that throughout every moment of the bad things that happened this week, God was the ever-present Rock for me to cling to. He saved my son’s life. He took care of things at work. He helped me as I stood by my mother. But perhaps the best news is this: My ever-present Rock is always there! No matter what it is I face! And He is your ever-present Rock as well!
“From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.” (Ps. 61:2)
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two teens, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, with Answers2Prayer Ministries.