Hey there!

Today we are talking about what to do when life is throwing chaos your way and you just can’t find rest.

There is a way to get victory through those tough seasons of life! In one of my earlier episodes, I shared about a young female resident doctor who was attending our church. She asked me if I could meet with her and help her through some tough things she was going through. If you recall that episode, she had shared with me that she was just struggling with all of her medical workload, being a wife, and her husband was wanting to have kids soon on top of it all! She just couldn’t figure out how she would possibly handle being pregnant during residency. We talked and I spent some time encouraging her and mentoring her through that. I believe it will benefit everyone listening to learn one of the key things that she and I spoke about. I asked her “what is your biggest challenge that you are going through right now?” She said, “I think the biggest thing that I’m struggling with is that, in addition my full workload of patients and studying for medical exams, I’m also on call on a regular basis.”

So she and three other residents in ophthalmology were on a rotation and she said that she was always matched with a seasoned doctor and they would be on call from the time work was over that day until the next morning. She said, “every time I’m on call I get called in, and I’m usually there through the night. Sometimes don’t get home till 3 or 4 a.m., and then I have to be back to work by 8 that morning!” She said it can mean very very little sleep and it’s just incredibly hard to deal with.

Now, I am a person who really believes in the power of prayer. I believe that God wants to help people. I believe that God is for you, not against you, and He’s looking at you saying, “invite Me in and let Me show you how I can help you,” because God is a loving Father. He has a good plan for each and every one of us and He wants to help us if we’ll just ask for help! I think so many times we don’t ask for help. We just think, “oh, I don’t want to bother Him,” or, “oh, this isn’t a big enough thing for prayer,” or, “oh, this isn’t something that could really be prayed for.” We often don’t think that God is going to answer prayers or that things are even okay to pray for.

So what I said to this young lady is, “when you know you’re going to be on-call the next day, start praying the morning of the day beforehand so that you have plenty of time for God to be working on this prayer for you. Pray the day before you’re on call that the next night there will be few-to-no emergencies, that everything will be dealt with during the day, and that you won’t be out on call past 10 p.m..” She looked at me and said, “well, wouldn’t that be praying that people who have a serious need don’t come in when they’re hurting or in pain? I don’t think that would be right to pray,” but I said, “no. That’s not what the prayer is at all. You’re praying a day in advance that there won’t be any emergencies that you have to be there dealing with past 10 p.m., and that gives God time to work on their bodies to see that either they come in early during the day for the treatment they need and they don’t leave it till evening, or that their eyes are supernaturally healed and they don’t have any problems at all! Either way, your prayers are benefiting the patients!” She said, “oh! that makes sense! I never even thought about doing that.” I said, “well, you can go put that into practice. Just put it on your calendar! Every time you’re on call pray on the way to work the day beforehand that you are going to be home from being on call by 10 p.m., or not be called in at all in the first place.” And so she agreed to do it.

I didn’t even discuss that with her in the days and weeks after that discussion. Then one day about three months later she was visiting with me and she said, “Amy, remember when we had that conversation and you encouraged me to pray that nobody would need to be seen those nights or that I’d be home by 10 p.m.?” I said, “yes,” and she said, “I have faithfully and consistently prayed that prayer every time that I was going to be on call, and since I started praying that I have never had to be there past 10 p.m.. In fact, I even had one of the seasoned doctors who takes rotations with all four of us residents say to me in the last week, ‘you know, I love being on call with you because normally when I’m on call I’m here half the night or more, but when I’m on call with you lately I never am here past 10 p.m..'” She said she just had to hold back the laughter from that seasoned doctor because she knew exactly why that was happening.

I think that is such a cool testimony because that meant that the difference between her and the other three residents who were still being called in all night every time they were on call was that she was praying over it while they were not. She brought that whole scenario up to me because she was having a hard time finding replenishment and getting enough rest at night.

What’s keeping you up at night? What is preventing you from resting like you need to be resting? Maybe it’s sleep for you, or maybe it’s just not being able to find 30 minutes a day to sit and relax and drink a cup of your favorite drink and read a book or something that you need to be replenishing with. Ask yourself, “what is that one thing that might be blocking me from having that 30 minutes of replenishing time or getting enough sleep at night?” and then just really pray over that area that it would be supernaturally dealt with. God loves to intervene and help us in supernatural ways simply because we’re His kids and He loves us so much!

I hope that encourages you today. It’s just a little nugget that I shared with her that was life-changing, which she continued to operate in throughout her years of residency fellowship and even continues in now as a full-fledged physician. I want to encourage you that what God did for her He will do the exact same thing for you in whatever your area of need is as you look to Him and you are diligent to pray over that area. God has a good plan for your life and, whatever you are going through, whatever chaos seems to be going on, you are going to make it! You are a strong powerful person that God has created for an amazing purpose, and you are going to fulfill all that He has called you to do and be a blessing to humanity. I believe in you my friend, and I am praying that you have a restful and replenishing week.