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.