Gods rules

I have written about my friends Gary and Michelle before. The kind fudge selling God loving people from St Augustine. They open their home and hearts to us with no pretense. Michelle grew up catholic and went to catholic school. She speaks of it with fond memories and says she was never smacked with a ruler, but has fond memories of a blue ruler with the 10 commandments on it. She recalls being a 4th grade student with this ruler reading the commandments over and over. 

She talks of feeling like she couldn't imagine ever breaking one of them and yet she say there as we handed her the ruler pictures above tearfully confessing she's broken them all. Somewhere between this ruler meditation and life things got messy. As she spoke I recalled my own childhood, involved in a baptist church in south florida singing about being in the Lords army and going to church everytime the doors were open. I was an awanas kid and I did sword drills better than most. I was moved to tears at my Christian youth summer camp as I nailed my sins to the cross. I believed in God and would tell anyone who would listen. The translation however from church to home wasn't there. At home we didn't pray. We didn't read the bible, we didn't talk about scripture and Gods rules. Instead I was told "don't do this... Don't do that." A logical person given no reason to follow what I was told figured some lessons I would have to learn the hard way but the ones I learned that way could have all been avoided had I been taught the why behind the what. Now I wouldn't change it it gives me a great testimony in knowing God can radically change anyone in His perfect timing, but I remember the days when I would sneak reading my bible by flashlight past my bedtime and I remember thinking how much I wanted to be like the great people in that book who loved God. I never walked away from church fully but I did not always live my life in life with those commandments. Even now in a place in my life where I'm trying to give everything I am to God I fail to keep those 10 commandments. It's my failure that reminds me of the need of my sweet savior. Not that I should not do my best but when my best fails grace takes hold. 

Amazing grace how sweet the sound. I'm so thankful for Gods kindness that while he gives us His standards He gives us a means to meet them . He gives The Holy Spirit to guide and comfort and the precious blood of Jesus to cover my multitude of sins. He wants my best but loves me at my worst. It's through His love that I'm led to repentance which yields a sweet grace for my soul. Friends don't misunderstand me. We are called to holiness but know that our works are a demonstration of our faith, an intractable  part of our faith. We don't work for our salvation because salvation is an unlearn able gift but we are saved for a purpose (Ephesians 2:8-10). 

Friends contemplate Gods rules and know that He has good works planned for you to do. He wants the best of you and for you. Let your failure of meeting the "rules" lead you to prayer and repentance so that you make be closer to God. Meditate on his word and remember the faith you had in your childhood. Remember how you couldn't imagine disobeying or not loving God (if you grew up in the church) remember He goes before you and with you and your not alone. 

My heart and my flesh may fail but Lord you are my portion forever -psalm 73:26 

A lesson in Faith from a Ford Fusion

So I take my car to the dealership to get an oil change and I mention that one of my tires has been saying it needs air even when I put it in but it hasn't gone flat. So we get there and the guy is like the whole side wall of your tire is cracked and there is a nail in it. The fact it didn't blow out is a miracle they tell me. So they tell me than can patch the nail, but that the wall of the tire could fail and I should know that. They tell me they can do 1 tire, 2, 3, or 4. Now I should tell you those tires have been on my car since I bought it (its at about 40,000 miles and I bought it with 37  agree to fix it but they say they don't have the tires and will send me home in a rental until tomorrow. Tires are expensive and that sucks but I decided to do all 4 because I needed them anyway in the next 5000 miles. So they call me today saying something happened and they can't get my tires until tuesday but they will give me better tires and charge me less if thats ok with me. can we talk about God working things out. also the guy who helped me yesterday used to work at Miami hospital as a scrub tech for like 20 years and knew exactly what I was doing as a PA student and was such a help. He kept saying "everything happens for a reason"

I gotta tell you friends. Just this morning I was thinking about when I got the car... and how God worked out me getting a really nice car at a crazy low price and worked out all the details. I have to tell you, I'm spoiled with the car He gave me and I realized that yesterday as I drove away in my rental 2013 ford focus. I realized the difference in the leather in the car, the difference in the size, how smoothly my 6 cylinder sports car drives.  I've offered to trade it in for a less expensive car countless times as I sometimes feel guilty for having such a nice car when people don't have food, or clothes or homes. But yesterday God showed me how that was a gift He gave me, and it's not wrong to accept a gift from my heavenly Father.  I was thinking as I was driving this morning that I missed my gift and couldn't wait to get it back from the dealership. I thought about how God knew me when He gave me that car- He knew me better than I knew myself because the car I affectionately call Grace was not one I thought I wanted at all and yet God was so clear that that was the car and this was the price and here's someone to buy your old honda civic. 

So this morning when my phone rings I'm worried because it's a number I don't recognize but I know its from where the car dealership is. It's a gentleman named Anthony who tells me my tires (which were going to cost me $745 for 4 (hello sports car tire price)... that they weren't available until Tuesday (let me tell you how much my schedule wouldn't allow me to make it to the dealership by 5 on Tuesday). I took a deep breath as Anthony continued. He goes on to say they are going to upgrade my tires for free, not going to charge me labor or to mount the tires, and they are going to let me pay $700 for 4 tires that are over $200 each. 

In what world does that happen? 

Let's recap:

1. My original tire should have blown out. Getting to the dealership was a miracle.

2. The tires I picked they were already giving me a deal on 

3. They are giving me better tires for a lower price. Seems backwards. 

And it was as if this whole time God has been saying to me : LOOK I show you time and time again I know what I'm doing. You seem to have forgotten. Let me just remind you that I can work miracles big and small. I have never forsaken you. 

And my heart just replied: Father, forgive me. 

If the God of the universe can work out my tire situation, which lets be honest in the grand scheme of the worlds problem is so minor, than how much more can I trust He is going to work out my job situation, our living situation, my husbands golfing, ect. If He has proven faithful in the small things, how much more can I trust He can do the bigger things. 

So today I'll have Grace the Ford Fusion back. 

But more importantly today I was reminded of Grace. I was taught thankfulness. I was reminded to have Faith. 

A very unexpected lesson of faith from my Ford Fusion

New Lessons through Marriage

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us, oh,
Oh, how He loves us,
How He loves us all

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us, oh,
Oh, how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about the way...

He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves us,
Oh, how He loves.

This song- How He loves by David Crowder Band is one that I have heart in several churches. Its a beautiful song, but one that for a long time I had a hard time grasping. How could God be jealous for me? Isn't jealousy bad? These were the sorts of questions I had. 

My husband has been teaching me a lot about righteous anger and the type of jealousy this song talks about. He has been showing me what a heart that is completely full of love for me looks like and has shown me what sinking in grace might look like. Does he loves me as much as God? No. not possible. But he loves me more than anyone ever has and that love, that picture he draws for me each day, is one that continues to help me understand that if my husband can love me as much as he does, and that times a billion or more is how much God loves me and I have to say its that picture that has really grown me. We have been married a little over 6 months now and I'm amazed at what a picture marriage is and I am so thankful for God providing such an amazing man for me to see just a glimpse of His love for me. 

It's that love that I feel in His presence and its that love i'm pursuing. 

<3

Anita

Clean vs. Unclean: What I learned in pediatric neurosurgery

In the last 6 weeks I have been in a pediatric neurosurgery rotation. It was an amazing opportunity and I loved it, but it definitely is a job that requires some emotional strength. You see patients who were healthy, and then got in a car accident resulting in a traumatic brain injury, physical devastation, and a lifetime of pain. You see children with tumors, you see babies that have been abused resulting in bleeding in and on the brain. You see patients who are born with chromosomal and anatomical abnormalities. And in seeing all this you grow one way or another.

My first week and a half I found myself overwhelmed with sadness. My first patient was a non accidental trauma child and I just couldn't understand how someone could take a baby home from the hospital and a short time later hurt them. To me that was obvious sin. To me I was overwhelmed with how helpless these children were and how no matter what the neurosurgery team did many of the children would never get to go run around a playground, go to disney world, play with a puppy. I started praying for my patients one by one that God would help them, encourage them, and that God would make himself known to them so that one day they would see the beauty of heaven. I began to see that what I was seeing is not how God created the world. He created us whole, and sin entered the world and results in the devastation. I became keenly aware that it is because of sin that I have a career that I'm about to start. In the garden there was no illness, no heartbreak.

Genesis 1:27 says "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." In God's image. In the perfect and holy image of God we were created. The first thing God does after creation in verse 28 "And God blessed them." He goes on to give them responsibility and gifts and in verse 31 He said "And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good." -- It was very good. I can't say that the things I was seeing I would call "very good." What I can say is that despite what I was seeing God was doing very good things. What I came to see is that sin has so impermeated our society that we no longer call it sin we call it sickness. Now I want to be clear I do not believe that when a child is sick that its because of the parents sin. I also don't' believe that God makes people sick, He is perfect, but He does allow sin to be apart of our world and does allow the consequences of the garden to still exist here on earth. That being said- I'm saying that because of the sin that has entered our world we do have illness, and heartbreak and the like.  The bible promises that in this world we will have trouble but we are to take heart Jesus has overcome the world. That being said- illness is not a result of not believing enough. Even Jesus who was perfect died on the cross. He believed more than anyone so if sin and death can devastate a perfect man's body then we are not exempt. It is by the grace of God we have any health at all.

In the Operating Room I found that there are distinct lines between "clean" and "unclean." Jesus lived in a world like that, only the clean and unclean weren't marked with blue drapes.  In the operating room there are a lot of precautions taken to lessen infection. Hair is to be covered, jewelry is to be removed, drapes are used, a long hand washing process, and a requirement to keep your hands above your waste but below your shoulders. Your first time it's a lot to think about. But what was amazing to me is in the OR we only cover the unclean to make it clean temporarily. Everytime I was in the OR I was thinking about this paradox, between the clean and unclean. How our world was clean and now it's unclean and we are only seen as clean in Christ.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.- 1 John 1:7 It is by the blood of Christ that we are MADE clean. Not covered with drapes but cleansed. and that cleansing is a gift that we didn't earn. I came to a place where I learned more about grace. It is by grace I am in this program, by grace I am mostly healthy, by grace I have a husband, by grace I have today on this earth. None of these things are earned by me. It is by grace I have been saved. It was when I started to really put all this together that I still prayed for my patients, but I prayed also that God would just shine through me. Friends it is exhausting to try and live a life for Christ, but when you let Christ live a life through you it takes you places you never thought, to conversations you didn't plan, to a compassion you couldn't know without Him and a heart for those you don't know.

Friends, in all this I want you to see that anything we have is a blessing from God through Christ.  While God can bless us when we aren't christians, the true blessing comes from Christ. Thats when salvation happens, thats when a new heart is given, thats when the spirit that died in us in the garden is replaced with the holy spirit. That's when we can see blessing in the world that is muddled with sin. That's when we can see promise in the faces of the patients I was seeing. Without Christ there is no hope for an end. There is nothing to bridge the unclean and make it clean.

Let me know how I can pray for you. Know that in Christ we are made clean, and in heaven we will be made whole. What a blessing !