The Beauty of Grace

This summer has taught me a lot already:

Medically—I’m experienced in urine analysis, pregnancy tests, administering shots (in the arm and the bottom), reading doctors’ handwriting, filling prescriptions, bandaging cuts, helping flush out ears and more!! I LOVE every minute of clinic and cannot wait to do even more.

Mentally—I reinforced the fact that I NEED my quiet time to think, reflect, pray, etc…and normally I get this through running.

Physically—I’ve learned very few people love to run as much as I do. This poses a problem when you can’t go anywhere by yourself, so joining the gym with the other interns has been a good solution (and by the end of this internship I should be in the best shape of my life).

Socially—Keilah and I have become quite the team and sharing this experience with her has been fantastic! I love being around so many like-minded people.

Spiritually—God is so good and knows exactly what He’s doing. I didn’t realize how many other people applied for the internship, and the fact that I’m here shows that this is exactly where God wants me at the moment. That can be trying when your hard work goes unnoticed. Teams repeatedly ignore our instructions. It’s difficult to give up your favorite activity of the week in order to stay back with a sick team member. Using every minute of your “free time” to cook and clean wears you down a LOT. Repeating yourself and explaining over and over and over again seriously drain your energy. Mistakes are readily pointed out while accomplishments are quickly forgotten (if noticed at all). Being grateful is hard…but then I look at the cross. God demonstrates so much grace. My best attempts to do everything on a checklist (for any part of life) always fail, yet God doesn’t value me any less because of that. Christ humbled himself to a life on earth and death on the cross for our sake. He put up with torture while I’m only experiencing annoyances. By God’s grace I have come to know Him and He has led me here. By His grace, others are coming to know the joy of salvation. By His grace, our kitchen fire yesterday didn’t destroy anything (but we’ve spent the last two days cleaning every dish we have). And by His grace will we love each other and enjoy the coming weeks.

These past three weeks have been some of the most exciting and draining days of my life. I’m gaining hands-on medical experience. I feel more content than I have in quite a while and know that’s only because of God. We’ll see what the future holds, but I would love if it looked a lot like this.

Prayer Requests:

·         Praise for the numerous learning experiences and helpful conversations I’ve had

·         Praise for God’s continual watchfulness and protection

·         Pray that I will be patient and grace-filled

·         Our fifth intern Caroline arrived yesterday. I’m looking forward to getting to know her. Having her will lighten everyone’s load, but it’s different from “normal” so please pray that the adjustment would go smoothly.

·         Pray for the one-week team from North Carolina. They’ll be working in La Fe.