Highlights of 2016

1. I started to see a psychotherapist.
2. I ran a 15k and started running distances (13.1 miles!) that I had never run before.
3. Park Community Small Group
4. I drank my first macchiato (yum).
5. I fell deeper in love with Christ and the Body of Christ.
6. I spent time with Esther and Deina in New York City, Esther and Joseph in Irvine, and drove up to Madison to see Abby.
7. I subscribed to the New Yorker and started to follow Omid Safi, one of my favorite columnists (he posts regularly on  'On Being'.
8. My sister turned to me and looked at me and told me she was going to start praying for me regularly.
9. My mom and I road-tripped from Salt Lake City to Chicago with my new car.
10. God blessed me with a used car that I bought for dirt cheap.
11. I experienced God's love through people.

DREAMS (to be completed within the next 10 years):
1. Publish a compendium of my poetry.
2. Do an Italian farm-stay.
3. Create a stained-glass piece with my future spouse and put it in my kitchen.

LONGTERM DREAMS (to be completed sometime before I die):
-Radically serve an underserved population abroad as a Family Nurse Practitioner.

The Buffer Zone

This moment in time
Is worthy of your time
A time when pain is too real
And cannot be swatted away

A time when pain blurs into
Infinitesimal seconds, minutes, hours
Bleeds out of time and into space
And cannot be contained by gauze and tape

There is a space you will find
That is no insignificant form of grace
Hope that exists and emanates through the
Prayers that rise, the hands that grasp
The Body that will joyfully suffer alongside you

It is in this buffer zone that perhaps we
Realize hope incarnate

Your Glory

And when the night is holding on to me

God is holding on

This past year, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and encouraged to start taking antidepressants. For the first time in my life, I found myself inundated with thoughts of going to sleep and never waking up; yes, for me, life had become that hard and unbearable. What to do with pain that seems to be unshakeable and seems to affect every aspect of your life? Corrie Ten Boom once said, "no pit is so deep that He is not deeper still" - I will not let this season rob me of experiencing God's love and deep joy. The weight of His glory sits heavy on my heart and I am learning more and more about how above all else, God is zealous for His glory. Yes, His zeal for His glory to be showcased in my life will sustain me through this season. John Piper says that God's glory is the "radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections." I trust that this season of cloudiness will be used by God to reflect His perfect love, His perfect faithfulness, His perfect compassion. 

And when the night is holding on to me

God is holding on

Aches

I was reminded these past few days of what it feels like to be loved. Fullness and joy and once again feeling comfortable in my own skin. Let me backtrack. I think these past few months have been a whirlwind of events - mostly me carrying a resounding dull ache in my heart and feeling like I was losing bits and pieces of myself. Heartache will do that to you - cause you to think dark and heavy thoughts and then you feel self-loathing because you start to see sides of yourself that don't seem quite true. I stayed with Joseph and Esther after the CCDA conference this past weekend and I felt the feelings of fear, abandonment, and doubt slip away. I know that God blessed me with gentle affirmations of love this past weekend and I know that He is with me right now here in Chicago but why do I still feel heavy-hearted and overwhelmed by sadness? This ache in my heart will not go away. I wonder if my dad carries the same ache in his heart? All this to say, I know that there is an impending joy and that sadness and joy are different sides of the same coin. One could even say that great joy is not possible without deep sorrow; after all, weren't both of these things apparent in the life and death and resurrection of Christ? I find myself moving through the night towards the dawn, and it is my heart's cry to experience great joy and the love of God that makes that joy possible.

The Pear-Apple Tree

oh pear-apple tree,
blessed be the fruit that
weighs down your boughs
to kiss the ground.

my eyes beheld a wondrous thing
when time caressed spring blooms
and slow-step danced center stage
into evenings drowsy with sun and light.

gunshots hang in mid-air, seemingly pause
to take in the zenith of your existence:
fruit that is borne and exists to nourish and
i cannot help but stand guard, overprotective
of your limbs and existence.

A close friend asked me this question: "Grace, what is the purpose of your life? Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?"

What greater purpose is there but to love like Christ loves? To love people who have killed other people, to love people who have crippling addictions, to love the abandoned, to love the brokenhearted, to love the person who has hurt me the most. I want to live deeply in God's love and I want to be so mesmerized, so captivated, so satisfied in the love of Christ. And ten years from now? I want to see myself making the decision each morning to die to myself and take up my cross and follow Jesus.

7/8/16 Thankful List

-Providers at Homan (Dr. Lin, Patty)
-Friends at Homan
-Stuffed peppers that Anna made
-Tears that let the sadness flow out
-Beautiful housemates (Amy: "From one sad person to another, you're not alone. You don't have to do anything or try to make up for the season you're in.")
-Unshakeable joy in the Lord

I do not want this season of fire and testing to blind me of God's goodness or cause me to diminish a great, wonderful, and magnificent God. Here is my present to you, Lord - I give this season to you.

Unseen Things

Earlier this morning, I sat on my bed and read the chapter in Hebrews that lists one name after another of people who trusted and put their faith in the Lord: Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, the people of Israel, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah (who the heck is Jephthah?), David, Samuel, the prophets… These names crossed my mind as I biked to work this morning. Fast forward a few hours and I found myself at my desk unable to stop crying as I came to the realization that I am in a dark place - a place where even folding laundry seems to require too much energy and relationships seem to be too much of an effort. A place where I feel like I am unraveling, and where I am unable to function and do normal activities of daily living. A place that has caused me to turn into a dysfunctional fire hydrant, tears flowing without restraint. My coworkers looked at me with concern, and I felt a hand gently land on my shoulders. Dr. Lin asked me what was the matter, and I managed to say through my cries, "Dr. Lin, I don't know how to function anymore." This place. This is where I am right now, a place where I feel so broken and where I feel like I have lost myself and where all I desire is for lightheartedness and complete satisfaction and joy in the Lord.

some thoughts on hope

Today was a very joyful day because I got to meet with one of my favorite patients, a person I consider my spiritual father because of his wisdom, life experience, and personal walk with the Lord. I wrote about this patient in a previous blog post - when he was younger, he murdered a man and was supposed to have received the death penalty. For some reason (thank goodness), he was spared his life and instead spent decades in prison. At one point during his imprisonment, he encountered Jesus intimately and radically and gave His life to the Lord. During today's visit (which always exceeds the average patient visit), this patient and I talked about hope. Hope is a funny thing, it is intangible and abstract and yet, it has the power to sustain and carry us through the darkest of times. For this patient, when he met the Lord, he still had 19 years to serve in prison. Yet, he looked at me and said that during this time, his hope in the Lord grew with each passing year.

We continued talking, and he talked about how oftentimes, prisoners were given mail from the outside world. He looked at me and stated, "Grace, I never received any mail but I was okay with that because I received the greatest news when I met Christ." Eyes sparkling, he continued, saying "The Lord wrote me and my entire existence."

In addition to meeting with this dear mentor, I had my appointment with behavioral health and caught her up to speed on recent events, specifically my recent interaction and heartbreak over what happened between my dad and I on Father's Day. As devastating as that interaction was, God redeemed the day in the form of ministering to me through Christian community. Dr. Palmer pointed out that my Heavenly Father came to my aid and showed me His perfect Fatherly love on this day. It's true - the Lord meets my deepest hurts and deepest needs and satisfies me. I am truly thankful because when I look back on that day, the love that I experienced in the most painful moment will have sapped the bitterness ensuing from the conversation that I had with my father.

Dr. Palmer and I continued to process together and I told her that the winds were shifting and that this season was changing. Since Father's day, I have felt more at peace and more joyful in surrendering my relationship with my dad to the Lord. I have realized that the Lord needs to be my everything. He wants all of me and I want to give Him all of me. Complete surrender. I recognize that my relationship with my dad has never had a stable foundation - it has always been resting on straw and in this last interaction, the straw holding up our relationship was completely incinerated. God allowed this conversation to happen, and I believe and trust that it is because the Lord wants to renew this relationship by starting with putting down a more secure and authentic foundation. I do not know when and how or even what this will entail, but I trust that it is in the Lord's hands. He is the worker of miracles and I trust that in His timing, my relationship with my dad will be a beautiful thing.

Hope is a curious thing. I cannot smell it, hear it, see it, taste it. And yet, it has the power to sustain. As a daughter of Christ and a follower of Christ, I have full access to the hope that Christ offers. What a crazy, beautiful gift.

Abba, Father.

I called my dad for Father's Day yesterday and it was probably the hardest conversation I have ever had with him. We were maybe two minutes into the phone conversation and things quickly spiraled downwards. In my brief phone calls with my dad, he has always brought up the fact that he prays for me. He did so again yesterday and kept saying that he prayed for me during my college years and that he would continue to do so. This remark wasn't a stand alone comment, however, and he also added that I was old enough to take care of myself. There was an underlying current behind these words, and for the first time his words sounded hollow and off. I guess in the past whenever he mentioned that he prayed for me, it struck me as odd but i couldn't quite pinpoint it. When he repeated those words yesterday, I finally realized why his words left me uncomfortable: him saying he was praying for me was such a cop out answer and his way of justifying his absence in my life. It's not fair. It's such an easy way out: "Grace, I would rather not have a relationship with you because that requires sacrifice and an investment outside of myself. But Grace, don't worry. I'm praying for you." Nothing else. When he said those words, something inside me broke, and I called him out on it, saying "Dad, prayers are nice and all, but don't you want a relationship with me?" When I said those words, I immediately regretted saying them out loud. He snapped and started yelling at me, saying "This is why you called? Whenever you call or come here, you only complain or you come to ask me for something. You don't understand me. If this is why you called, don't bother to call me." And then he hung up on me.

I started to weep, and frantically dialed his number. He picked up and I sobbed into the phone, "Dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He continued to yell and I could not bear his words - I ended the conversation and turned off the phone. I realized at that moment that if relationships are tangible entities, the fragile cord that is between my dad and I broke during this interaction. Something broke, and I do not think I will be able to ever call him out of my own volition.

I ran downstairs crying and dry-heaving and ran outside to the garden out back. Blurred by my tears, I saw Cali and Emily run towards me and I found myself falling to the ground. My hands clenched and I became paralyzed from the bottom up and these dear sisters started to pray and pray over me. Cali started singing "set a fire" and kept singing the words over me and eventually whispered to me to sing the words. I half cried half sung the words and she gently said, "Grace, sing it louder." Peace overcame me and slowly, slowly the paralysis left my body.

I do not know what God is going to do - I know that I have to step away from this relationship with my dad for my own emotional health. I want to surrender everything to the Lord and ask him to take away bitterness and sorrow. I want the Lord to fill me with mercy towards my own father. I feel so broken.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me 

and I wake in the night at the least sound 

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, 

I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought 

of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 

And I feel above me the day-blind stars 

waiting with their light. For a time 

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-Wendell Berry

Season of Suffering

You gave me a picture of a farmer working a garden. I am the farmer and as I gaze out, all I see are the weeds. As much as I want to grasp my tools and labor towards extracting every single invasive weed from the ground, You are much more gentle than that. I am prone to self-condemation and perfection - You see even the weeds as integral to your craftsmanship. It is not the season of harvest, and I struggle to stay present in the suffering. Are you here, Lord? Stay awhile.

Update

Thankful List: Conversations with my sister, receiving beautiful care packages from my sister (artisan chocolates!), praying and finally catching up with Esther, early morning prayers, having Hannah back home, conversations that bring clarity (this morning's conversation with Anna and Dr. Dowell), prayer group, patients who sing over me in the exam room.

Esther:
-Pray for her remaining months at the family owned optometry clinic, including her conversations and interactions with her coworkers Janet and Samantha.
-Pray that she would continue to have a fire for the Lord and that she too would linger and ask questions in her interactions with different people.
-Pray for her upcoming medical missions trip to Papua New Guinea in July.
-Pray for continue healing and joy and passion for the Gospel.

"And Jesus, I don't think I have told you this today but I want to tell you right now that I love you. I love you God, I love you Christ, I love you Holy Spirit. You are welcome here."

I realized in my conversation with Anna this morning that I grow attached to objects and people and that when these things are taken away from me, fear creeps in and I feel unstable and insecure. I realize that these feelings are tried to the abandonment I experienced when my dad left my family. Anna pointed out that she sees me wrestling with myself and that I need to kick out the part of me that dwells on the negative. Life is too short to constantly struggle with the part of me that feels alone. What she pointed out is all true - I want to grow in my understanding of the Gospel and the truth that Christ promises never to leave me and is constantly by my side. I want to be cognizant of what scripture says about Christ and know through and through that my deepest desires and prayers have been answered in the form of Christ. I want joy to come solely from the Lord. I want my identity, security, and peace to derive from Christ. Christ be my everything. Christ be the breath in my lungs and the movement of my limbs. Christ be my past, my present, and my future.

I am so thankful for the conversation I had with Anna: her perceptiveness and her willingness to share these things with me. I felt like the Lord was using this conversation to speak with me, and I am so thankful that he has been ministering to me through my conversations with my sister, with Esther, with Anna. Thank you for these gifts, Lord. Thank you for this day.

Achoti (אָחוֹת); my sister

You know when the Holy Spirit touches a deep wound and you start crying and shaking uncontrollably? Yeah.., well that happened during service at church today. I don't experience physical manifestations that often, but when I do, I find that these are moments when I feel lavished by God's love. The yearning and the hunger and the brokenness… All of these things arose out of me and God began to remind me of a love that is incredibly deep and powerful. A love that is pure and perfect. After service, my sister texted me saying that she felt the need to pray for me while she was at church back in Salt Lake City. She texted me saying that this was the first time she has ever been led to pray for someone else. Never did I think that this day would come when I would hear these words from my sister, let alone hear her say that I was the subject of her prayers.

I remember a day in the past when my mom looked at me and said, "Grace, your relationship with your sister might be nonexistent right now but when she comes to know the Lord, you guys are going to have a beautiful relationship." It's true. I feel a deep bond to my sister and whenever I talk to her, I feel like our relationship is meant to stretch into eternity. I cry as i write these words - is it possible to love someone this much? 

Anyways, I knew at that instant when she texted me that God not only heard her prayers, but answered them. it's crazy that she was praying for me at her church back in Salt Lake this morning and I was literally shaking and crying during church service here in Chicago. 

I am the suffering patient sitting in this chair.
Jesus, I see you walking on water. I, too, stand on this water, arms outstretched.
I hold a heavy heart in the palm of my hands and all I want to do is drop it into the dark waves below.
Give me faith to entrust it to You.
Give me faith to look at You and not at the storm around me.

dad, you have broken my heart many times.
and i wonder if i have broken yours?

known and Known

One of the idols in my life is a constant need to be known. And I realize that this manifests itself through various mediums, whether it be through tangible forms like various relationships or more intangible forms like Facebook, Instagram, and even this blog. With the start of the new year, I jumped on the bandwagon and decided to take a break from Facebook. Amusingly, I had to reactivate my account a couple of hours into the new year because I wasn't able to listen to my Pandora station because it was linked to my Facebook account; alas, it appeared that I was caught knee-deep in the webby mires of social media. Don't worry, I was able to jump through some loopholes and deactivate my account. And let me tell you, one thing I realized after three months was the growth that occurred in my present day relationships. I was able to take time away from spending time glazing over relationships that were from another time and experience and invest my energy and love to grow present relationships. And boy, did it feel good.

Interestingly, I find that the pull of Facebook has to do more with myself. I want people to know what I'm doing, and feel out of the loop when I see posts that don't somehow involve me. Sure, it's nice to see life updates from people I love, but I gotta say, my motivations for being on social media are primarily selfish. These days, I realize that there is a deep joy in knowing that I am Known by God. I could fade into obscurity and not mind as long as I knew that God was right there, looking at me and loving me. 

Indeed, to this day I struggle with an insecure knowledge of love. There are deep chasms in my heart that cry out for deeper knowledge of God's love. It is a kind of love that frees me from having to constantly exert my presence on other people and it is a love that fills dark and lonely spaces inside of me. I want to spend more time being Known and not just known. 

Enter Into the Pain

Is it not our natural human tendency to look the other way when we see something that could potentially cause us to feel pain? Perhaps it is an innate drive that hearkens back to ages past that causes us to run the other way when we sense a potential threat to our wellbeing. In an age and time when the pursuit of happiness and self-preservation is exalted, there seems to be no space and no time to fraternize with those who are hurting and with those who are marginalized. Why on earth would anyone willingly enter into hard spaces; indeed, it would appear that such interactions are far from reciprocal.

Yet, my time at Lawndale has humbled me in that God has given me the strength and desire to run to the pain and not the other way. It is precisely in the space of suffering that I see Jesus and encounter Him. I don't really know how to fully describe it - I feel as if there is a magnet in my heart and I find myself drawn again and again to the suffering patient. Let me clarify: this is not a scenario that delineates between me and the "other" but rather I, too, am the suffering patient.

There is Kingdom beauty in suffering. Yes, Jesus himself entered into the folds of gritty humanity and became the ultimate version of the suffering patient. He took on all symptoms of brokenness and bore it mercifully. As a person who strives to love Jesus and to live each day for Him and for His glory, I realize that suffering is inevitable. I also realize that suffering is not the end in and of itself but that it is fertile ground upon which hope can start to take root. Indeed, it seems that hope is an indispensable treasure that Christian physicians can provide to their patients and to those who suffer.

Show Me How to Pray

I would like to be a Christian who prays more for God's glory than my own.
I would like to pray bold prayers asking for God to be glorified, regardless if that means sacrifice and suffering.
I would like to pray with sweat rolling down my forehead and tears falling unto my clothes over nations  and individuals who do not know Christ.
I would like to pray for greater intimacy with God, that I would know the height and depth of a love that has no beginning or end.

Thankful List

-Tene and her strength
-15 minute breaks spent in the prayer room w/ Cali
-Conversations that bring clarity (conversations with Meesh)
-Asparagus
-Praying with Vanessa daily
- Articles in the New Yorker (check out http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/01/03/sweet-revolution)


Goals :
- To intentionally wake up every single morning and make the decision to live each day for God.
- I want to be more aware of the fact that I am surrounded by people who are products of God's goodness and glory.
- To spend more time loving God and other people.

to live each day knowing my heart's desire has been fulfilled.

A Poem of Lament

A Poem of Lament (in which I lament my inability to fully love God and love others)

I have failed you
when you walk into the room
timidly asking for a meal and perhaps something more.
The swipe of a credit card and an impatient heart
and our interaction falls short of doxology.

I have failed you
in my inability to see you even as you squint at the menu and
murmur that you cannot see well.
I am the one guilty of lack of sight; you are the one
in which His glory is manifest.

I have failed You
reminiscent of Peter and mournful of acts of betrayal.
My faith falls short; my hands bleed red
on the eve of divine Crucifixion.

you are more than enough.

Based off of Exodus 36:

O God, we are gathered here this day, to declare that we love you and say that we are grateful for you

We gather to say you are more than enough

More than enough. That you, God of the heavens and the earth, would dwell with us, even for a moment

It would be more than enough

If your grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and compassion ceased tomorrow, if we never received another blessing from you, we would still know that

You are more than enough

In our brokenness

You mend us

In our ugliness

You delight in us

Though we reject you

You accept us

Though our faith is so brittle

You remain faithful

You are more than enough

You are more than enough

You are “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think”

You empower us through the Holy Spirit

You do more than enough

Our cups overflow

They overflow with a love and hope undeserved

May we not sit as idle wells, as reservoirs never used. But rather,

May we pour ourselves out for your Kingdom

For the Shalom of our communities, with generous hearts, out of abundance in you,

May we bring our gifts, our resources, and our lives to be a part of building your Kingdom, for your glory, now and forevermore. Amen.

And yet, I would not trade this past year and the relationships that stretched my heart. it is with gratitude that i surrender these relationships to the Lord - i realize that every single friendship is a gift from Him and that everything has its season. and I realize that the ache that i feel can only be filled by Him. I cannot deny that He has blessed me with beautiful friendships and I trust that He will continue to be glorified in relationships that have yet to come into existence.

Seasons Change

She beamed at me, and told me that she was back in school studying mortuary science.

I paused, and asked her why she wanted to work in a cemetery.

She looked at me and said, "Grace, it's because dead people can't hurt you."

I did not know what to say; I only knew that in that instant, the weight of her words caused my breath to catch. 

I am in a season of transition, and am preparing to say my goodbyes to the various people who are leaving lawndale for back home, for med school, for PA school. I have seen God open my heart, and I have seen myself love the people around me to the best of my ability. And now they are getting ready to leave, and I am left with a heart that feels too heavy in my chest. Too many instances, too many moments of joy, one too many a tear and laugh and now I feel the consequences of a heart that cannot possibly say goodbye. People are not replaceable - this is something that I have learned living in Lawndale. I have attempted to savor the present relationships and now I must face the empty spaces. And this is something that I have always feared - perhaps it stems from the aftermath of a father who walked out when I was one years old. 

I think … my favorite room at the health center is the exam room. How can I capture and adequately describe the moments when I am able to see glimpses of the Kingdom of God? I see it in the testimony of the men and women I meet with in the space of these rooms. I yearn for it when hope is but a faint glimmer. And yet, I hold onto that glimmer fervently. The Kingdom of God - it is not an ephemeral reality but one that reverberates and radiates forth from Jesus. The tension of Kingdom now and Kingdom come is perhaps a double-edged sword: I have the honor of being used by Christ and to partake in Kingdom ministry here on earth; yet, it is all done quite brokenly and imperfectly. My prayer for greater hunger for the Lord, for my eyes and heart to see Heaven on earth, for repentance and for humility. To be able to love extravagantly and continue to walk with Jesus.

this morning i got all four of my wisdom teeth taken out. as i groggily opened my eyes after the procedure in the exam room i couldn't stop crying - i blame it on the sedation. as i sat there in a state of semi-consciousness, the thought kept crossing my mind that I don't love God enough or give Him the love that He deserves. I wept thinking that thought and thinking about how I don't love my patients enough. My love is finite, but Your love is boundless. i might have concerned rachel at this point haha. also! i guess this isn't out of the ordinary - most girls cry when coming out of sedation. Boys usually laugh. Why is that?

things i am thankful for today:
-rachel who i was able to have this amazing conversation with as i waited in the lobby at the oral surgeon's office
-falling more in love with the people around me
-god teaching me that people are not replaceable
-small group last night //inductive bible study - we are currently looking at James and we spent a good few hours unpacking the first 17 verses.
-James
-scripture // i find myself growing more and more in love with the Word of God and prayer
-meesh coming home early from work and putting gauze in my mouth and spending time with me

It is an honor to open my eyes and ask for Your Kingdom come today.

Listen Israel 

The Lord [is] our God

The Lord [is] one

Love the Lord your God 

with all your heart 

and with all your soul

and with all your strength . 

Come, Jesus

We stood in the patient waiting area this morning for the usual time of prayer. One of the patients started to cry and confessed that after her office visit, she was going to a treatment center to receive help for alcohol abuse. Tears streamed down her face as she told us that she was scared. A few minutes later, a middle-aged man spoke up and started to cry as well. He told the group that he wanted to stop using heroin.

In moments of great need and vulnerability, I am forced to acknowledge the unparalleled and unfathomable power of the Gospel. I see the weakness of humanity in myself when I cannot break the chains that hold my neighbor captive. I see my weakness when I cannot break my own chains and free myself from my own demons. Weakness: it is not something that I welcome with open arms. And yet…  His strength is most evident in weakness. And yet, these days I have seen God act and move. I have experienced Him heal and comfort. I have seen His strength juxtaposed vividly against my own weakness. Indeed, it is a thing to behold.

Times prior to this season I doubted the efficacy of scripture. Desperately, desperately I have turned again and again to the Word of God these past few months and I now begin to see the power of scripture to cast away my darkness. Vanessa and I continue to increase the frequency of our prayer times at work - yesterday, we both sat inside one of the exam rooms and tears fell down my face as I cried out for healing: healing for myself, healing for her grandmother (who is starting dialysis treatment), healing for our patients. 

I do not understand the depression that weighs down on me at times. I do not care for the anxiety that overwhelms me and takes me deep under the waters. I do, however, see that my strength this season is sustained only by scripture and by prayer. I need the Lord: every single day, every single morning, every single moment.

These Words

"Grace, I can't expect you to help me when I don't make efforts to help myself. I want to start taking steps to change my eating habits and I'm going to start going to the water aerobics classes offered here at Homan Square. I woke up one day and it hit me: God has given me another day and it's up to me to start taking care of myself, you know?"

She was crying throughout our entire time together and tears were streaming down her face; indeed, both of us knew that her words reflected a deeper understanding of her worth and dignity as a person created by God and created in His image. She expressed a deep desire to take care of herself because her body and her limbs functioned yet another day and were gifts given to her by a great Creator. Empowered with the realization that the journey towards health is and should be a lifestyle of worship, my patient wept tears of joy and I too found her triumphs to be my own.

--
Patient #2:
As I looked over her medical chart, I noticed that she was only a year older than me. When I met with her in the room with resources for low-income housing and shelter she opened up and shared with me her heartaches. She and her son were getting evicted from their apartment in a week. She lived with her sister and her grandmother and her aunt but her aunt had recently up and left, leaving my patient to take care of her grandmother and her own kid. My patient's mother was recently released from jail in December and was still very much m.i.a. in my patient's life. As I listened to her story, anger boiled up from inside of me - the responsibilities that belonged to the adults were unfairly placed on my patient's shoulders. The so-called "grown-ups" essentially deserted my patient, leaving her to fend for herself, her kid, and her grandmother. My heart broke as she told me that her mom did not return home after being released from jail because she did not want to take care of her grandmother.

Towards the end of our time together, I handed her the resources and went over an emergency plan of action. I asked her if I could hug her and as I wordlessly held her, I felt the wetness of her tears on my shoulder. We remained in this position for quite a while and my heart broke.

--

I feel like God has been showing me healing in suffering - especially as I sit with patients in the exam room. I realize that my own healing is interconnected with the wellbeing of others and that as I try to be present in moments of extreme pain with my patients, I am able to experience God's extravagant love. I've started to ask myself each morning whether I'm going to live for myself or live for God - when I choose the latter each day, I find that something so abstract becomes a consistent question throughout the day that allows me to intentionally turn to God. I also had a profound realization as I sat with one of my patients. She started crying in the room and as I reached over and silently held onto her, I myself realized that I really really love my patients and that God is allowing me to see glimpses of how much He loves them - these are moments when I am able to sense the nearness of the Kingdom of God - when suffering is shared and the brokenness of our experiences are surrendered to God.

The vicissitudes of life steadily blur and I find myself savoring dreams that already came true.

This Imperfect Fast

As I head into the last week of the juice fast that I'm doing with New Life Church, I pause to reflect on the past 14 days:

Expect to fail and yes, failure can be anything from blatantly eating a piece of fried chicken at work - which by the way, I would not advise if you've been strictly juicing fruits and vegetables and have been drinking broth for the past week (why? why? I don't even like fried foods) - to inadvertently grasping unto other things beside God to satisfy yourself. Let me reiterate the last point: Yes, even within the space of a fast, I find myself inadvertently trying to grasp unto other things beside God to satisfy me. My roommate and I chuckled in an exasperated sort of way when we realized that we were getting a bit too caught up in what fruits and vegetables we were going to juice. It's true that I find myself dwelling on what will satisfy me, even if it is a juiced-up pear, apple, lemon, ginger, swiss chard, kale drink. 

The moments of failure have been moments where I have felt guilt and shame. I found myself berating myself and I think my biggest fear has been wasting this sacred time and space of encountering God, of growing apathetic and disillusioned and jaded. But I am reminded that God is God, and that he works within a fast and outside of it. I realize that my cry and desire for God during this time will only become steadily amplified after this fast - how do I know this? Because God is the good father who knows His childrens' hearts. Under the layers of selfishness, sinfulness, brokenness, and pride I know that God sees the crevices of my heart that cry out for Him. Just as He sees me right now, He will continue to graciously meet me again and again and again. 

That being said, I have come to embrace the slip-ups of this fast. It was out of my pride that I envisioned this time of fasting and prayer as a challenge to be conquered. My thought process looked something like this: I'm going to encounter God and experience greater intimacy. Yeah! It's going to be perfect - no messy failures where I have to meet my anxieties head-on. No. I'm going to circumvent the ugliness of who I am and simply ask God to break strongholds in my life. I'm going to intercede and pray and it's going to be a nice, pre-packaged, God experience. Oh! And I'm going to juice like crazy. ! 

Uh.., yeah no. How heretical of me to think of the Gospel as a nice, clean little experience. It is not. The Gospel is a beautiful, messy affair - unexpected and undeserved. I realized very quickly that God would allow my failures to humble me. Control has always been an idol in my life - one that I have described from time to time as a self-constructed cage that I oftentimes find myself in. And silly me, I was trying to control every aspect of this fast. It has been in the moments where I have fallen that everything becomes clearly focused: I am a sinner and am in need of God's constant grace. There is no such thing as a perfect fast; yes, we strive to re-prioritize the various things that have vied for our attention and worship. We repent, and ask God to take his rightful place in our hearts. We cry out for God's kingdom come during the duration of a fast, but we do so brokenly. 

As I go into this last week of fasting and prayer, I come before the Lord with open palms and a desire to simply, steadily, look at Him. I know that He embraces me for who I am - this fickle person who so often gets caught up in the non-essentials. 

To live under the banner and authority of the Holy Spirit.
You alone are King,
and there is freedom in submission
and awe in meekness.

Spirit, fill me with Life.

Into the Unknown

When I first glanced at New Life church's schedule for the upcoming new year, I noticed that the church was going to be doing a 21-day liquid fast. I didn't think much of it, but since that time (around Thanksgiving), I have had a nudging feeling and growing conviction that the Lord has something very special prepared for me during this time of hungering for Him and for greater intimacy. On the eve of the fast, I come before the Lord very much unraveled and very much lost. There are strongholds in my life that need to be broken, idols that need to be replaced by God, desperation that needs to involve running towards God. I need to encounter God and the truth that I am known and loved deeply by Him. I want to experience more of His love, I want to experience growth and power in my prayer life and find myself marveling at the Gospel once more. It is a spiritual pilgrimage that excites me, makes me nervous, and pushes me to surrender and trust in the goodness of God.

2016

These days I go to sleep with my headphones in listening to worship music. The past two nights, I have woken up in the middle of the night to the words of worship music and in those moments, I have experienced God's deep, rich love for me. And there has been no other Being who has captivated me in that way that the Lord has.

To God be the glory, to God be the ephemeral, fleeting stretches of time that compose our lives. To God my brokenness, my flesh and my sin and the things that make me human. To God the glorious redemption and sanctification of humankind through Christ. To God my spirit, soul, mind, body. To God be my everything. 

You see my heart, you extend your grace
Eyes open falling in love again
You say I'm yours

It was always you
It was always you
You found me

I'm singing out your lovely name
I'm giving you everything
You make my soul alive
You put your love inside

There's nothing that I have need of
Cuz there's nothing you haven't done
You  make my soul alive
You put your love inside