The Light That Overcomes the Darkness

    The ‘black cloud’, it is a title no medical personnel wants to carry or be associated with. In medicine it is reserved for the person who seems to have the worst cases, the most dramatic and crazy cases, or seems to have the most cases period. And then on the contrary few are labeled ‘white clouds’ meaning they typically get fewer cases or easier ones with less emergent procedures. And when a ‘white cloud’ and a ‘black cloud’ are on together every one wonders who will ‘win out.’ In the USA or Africa it is the same. Every team has a few physicians with each label and everyone else on the team silently or not so silently dread being on call with the ‘black clouds’ and breaths more easily when on call with a ‘white cloud’. Believe it or not there actually has been research done regarding this (PubMed "Black cloud" vs. "white cloud" physicians - Myth or reality in apheresis medicine?). Surprisingly (or not), there actually is no statistical correlation. So, why then in a scientific field that so heavily relies on ‘evidenced based medicine’ and statistically relevant data do we disregard the science and still have these superstitions? My personal belief is that we all need something or someone to blame. When the train wreck of a case comes in and you do everything right and everything just like you were taught, but the child still dies and you have to tell the family you tried but you were not successful. How do you deal with that internally? It is much easier to say, well it was because so and so was on and he is a black cloud. You can imagine it is not a great feeling to be labeled a ‘black cloud’ and can be quite discouraging. Is it because I’m cursed? It is because I’m not as good and so everyone dies when I’m on call? Is it because the Lord is preparing me for something worse later on? As you can see, Satan can use this little superstition to play many games with our heads. It is a constant battle in medicine whether we chose to notice it or not. 

To be clear, I am not endorsing this kind of labeling. I very much believe and am confident in a God who is 100% sovereign over every single detail in every single patient that comes in and who is there to provide care for them. But, the underlying stigma remains. In residency I was labeled a ‘grey cloud.’ Not clearly one or the other. I definitely had nights that made for crazy incredible stories. I had nights and days that made for heart wrenching stories. And I had plenty of and mostly days and nights without anything going awry. But isn’t it just like us to only remember the bad days and nights? It is so much easier to remember the bad stories that gripped our hearts and every single mistake we may or may not have made. But do we remember all the times that God provided and came through? The times He did heal and how out of our 40 patients all of them but the 3 are getting better and should go home. Or do we focus on the 3 who inevitably take 90% of our time even though nothing seems to work? Are we defined by the 3? Of course, we should always in everything we do strive to be and do our best. Our goal is always that 100% of our patients would get better and go home to their families healthy. 

But that is not up to us.

    And there’s the rub. No matter how you look at it, medicine tries to make everything about you; if you’re good enough or not, if you’re smart enough or not, how many patients you’ve lost or saved. As if any of this were up to us! We all need a daily, or even hourly reminder that NONE of this is about us! His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Is 55:9). “God is in Heaven and does whatever He pleases” (Ps 115:3). He alone holds the keys to life and death (Revelation 1:18). “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job1:21). And maybe even more encouraging to a Christian physician (or any person really) fighting the lies of being a ‘black cloud’: “The people who lived in darkness have seen a great Light and for those living in the land of the shadow of death, a Light has dawned.” (Matthew 4:16); “That Light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5); “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me would not remain in darkness” (John 12:46); “For you were once darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord. Live as children of Light” (Ephesians 5:8); “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). 

Praise the Lord! He is LIGHT! And darkness CANNOT overcome Him! Death is not the end, and it has been defeated. And for each of these precious children, made in His image, He has the ultimate victory even in their stories. For He made each of them, crafted them in their mother’s womb. And He has brought ultimate healing not only to their bodies, but for some even to their souls. He has truly overcome the darkness right before my eyes but I do not always see it. 

As you can imagine given this introduction, things have continued to be difficult here the past week. We did have a few calmer days, but each of my call days have come with very difficult cases. Last Monday early in the morning our child fighting Malaria passed away. Her case was hard for many reasons. She was the only girl in the family and her father and brothers wept over her. It also seems crazy to think that we are still losing children or anyone to Malaria in the 22nd century. But here we are. Overnight when I was on call we received a patient from another hospital who had sickle cell. She was in a sickle crisis and needed more respiratory support than this hospital could give. They intubated her and sent her to us. But when she arrived we were fighting a losing battle. We noticed that with every breath we gave her air was leaking into the skin and tissues around her neck, down into her arm, and even down around her heart (as seen on xray and CT). We had to give her breaths, but with each one the problem grew worse. Every breath literally saving her and killing her at the same time. Essentially we think that her trachea (air way) had been punctured when she was intubated making air leak into everything around it. We tried everything we could think of and brought in several other physicians to try to help figure out how to save her. But she passed away about 6 hours after arriving at Tenwek. 

    

    The next day we had a 10m old baby come in from another hospital also needing more respiratory support. The story was that 4 days prior she had fallen off the bed and when mom went to catch her a pot of beans that were cooking splashed in her face. But her entire face, ears, and part of her scalp were burnt pretty badly. But that didn’t account for the fact that she now needed to be intubated and had fluid collecting in her lungs. She was so sick when we received her that we could not get a single IV in her. We literally had someone trying to get a line in each of her 4 extremities while I bagged her. Peds surgery came and put in a central line and a chest tube and she seemed to stabilize for the time being. But something wasn’t right. Her facial burns were bad, but not enough to cause everything we were seeing. So, we checked her liver and kidney function and found out that she was already in fulminant liver and kidney failure. She was already getting acidotic. So my team went back to the family and asked more questions. And then we found out they had been treating her with ‘herbal’ medication for some time prior to her arrival. Herbal medication poisoning is way too prevalent here. Essentially the local medicine man gives the family a bag of leaves (who knows what they are) and they are told to grind them up and boil them in water and give them to the child. This is what lead to the demise of the first child who passed away after I arrived. The herbs lead to liver failure and then to Stevens Johnson Syndrome and he passed away after aspirating his food. In this patient it had not only injured her liver but also her kidneys at least. I still don’t know where the fluid in her lungs came from. Most of the day she stayed the same, but I had a horrible feeling about it. I was on call last night and went to see her before going to bed. We changed a few things that seemed to help, and we were treating her acidosis as aggressively as we could. For a minute I thought maybe she might turn the corner but she had not had any urine in almost 36 hours and her liver and kidney functions all kept worsening no matter what we did. This morning started with her heart slowly dropping but responding to CPR and 2 rounds of epinephrine. Her acidosis and kidney and liver functions continued to worsen despite all we did. So, this morning we had to tell the family that she most likely would not live through the day apart from a miracle from the Lord. We prayed with them, and they decided to make her DNR (Do Not Resuscitate). Then I was informed that I kiddo we admitted at sign out yesterday for a small oxygen requirement suddenly passed away on the floor overnight. He had CP and just had a little more work of breathing yesterday so the father brought him in. I looked over his chest xray with my medical officer and we noticed that his heart had been slowly enlarging over the past few months based on prior xrays. It was too late in the day to get an ECHO so we would have to wait until Monday. He was only requiring a small amount of oxygen and otherwise doing well, so we decided to treat him symptomatically until we could get more information on his heart. But overnight his father noticed that he no longer had a pulse. We are not sure when it happened or what happened. But CPR was done for a while with several doses of epinephrine but ultimately he passed away early this morning. 

    This morning as I was processing all that happened overnight I realized that I have only had 1-2 call shifts where all my patients lived through the night and into the morning. With the one last night there have been 7 children pass away since I arrived and one on the brink. But the Lord has been gently reminding me this morning of all the ways He has provided and brought healing during my time here. My initial baby with pneumonia now 11 weeks old, will hopefully be extubated in a few days. For about a week and a half after he arrived I thought he was going to die on me almost every single day. But at one point he was so close to death our team just stopped everything we were doing and prayed over him. We prayed for God to intervene and work a miracle. And God did. He ‘suddenly’ stabilized and has been improving since. Multiple kiddos with TB, or HIV, or bad meningitis or even fungal infections in the brain, kids with nephrotic syndrome (kidney disease) have all improved. Tiny little premature babies are thriving and growing and feeding well. And even several others that have had poisoning of various types, some herbal medicines and some accidental, have improved and gone home healthy. 

    So, despite the temptation to make it a numbers game and calculate the mortality rate of my patients while I have been here, I’m choosing to praise the Lord for the ways He has brought healing. Healing on earth and ultimate healing in eternity. And praising Him because in Him I cannot be a ‘black cloud.’ No, I am His child, and therefore the Light is in me. And the Light that overcomes darkness. I will give my best, and continue to pray that the Lord makes me a better physician every day. But I am continuing to learn to surrender to how He chooses to bring healing and Light to these families and patients. 

Uphill Run

You know that feeling when you’re running up a really big hill? You put your head down, focus on your breathing and increase the power in each stride. Four steps as you breathe in and four steps as you breathe out (at least for these short legs). Watch that log, and that rock, just keep going, don’t slip. In and out, you’re almost there. Muscles are burning, lungs start burning, but you’re so close. Once you reach the top you gasp for air and you may even pause as your lungs and muscles scream, but you have to keep going. At least now you can raise your head. The run for the moment is not as strenuous, and maybe even enjoyable. Now your head is high and your focus is the incredible scenery around you and not how hard it is to take each step. As you allow your thoughts to consider the beauty of the stream that runs beside the trail it almost feels like your feet are gliding across the path. The intensity of the run has changed but what really changed is where you kept your focus. 

            Since last Monday things continued to be just as busy and adrenaline producing as the first few days. Thankfully however, I was not on call nearly as much. One of my pneumonia kiddos passed away shortly after I last wrote. Her heart just gave out. We had a new child come in with blood pressures that were super high, and I had a good time teaching the students and interns how to think through the differential. On Wednesday we almost lost a teenager to severe malaria as her blood level dropped severely low and her body was both clotting and bleeding at the same time. A condition called DIC. We were able to effectively treat the malaria, but the damage that had been done was incredible. Her lungs filled with fluid, her liver and kidneys shut down and she was bleeding like crazy. Then her temperature spiked so we filled gloves with cold water to place on her body. However after the first few gloves, the water turned warm and wasn’t helpful. We had students running to other sinks in the hospital for cold water. On top of this, in Kenya the options for treating her kind of bleeding are few and not ideal. We needed fresh whole blood and at the time did not have any. So, I walked down to the blood bank and started filling out paperwork to give her my own blood. But just before I gave we found some fresh blood for her. I was relieved when I came in the next morning and she was still alive and even a little better. 

We almost finished rounds that morning without a crisis. . . almost. I was waiting for my intern to come to the NICU to finish rounds but we finally had to page him because it was taking him way too long. And of course he was at the bedside of my original pneumonia infant who was awake again and dropping his oxygen saturations. The one IV line we had stopped working, and so he was no longer getting any of his sedation. This time it wasn’t as easy as before. We worked for a good 3 hours total. We were unable to get an xray because we couldn’t get the portable xray down to where he was and we were also unable to move him to xray because he was too unstable. We got an ECHO bedside and it showed that the pressure in his lungs had significantly increased since his first ECHO. My heart sank, because I knew this meant he has a very small chance of recovering from this. While this was going on we were trying desperately to get another line in him. But no one could get one. We called anesthesia who came with an ultrasound and finally got one line, but couldn’t get another. We got a few medicines in him but still he was not settling. His heart rate was dropping and we had to give multiple medications to keep it up. Then that line failed. I really thought that was it for him. Finally one of the surgeons came and put in a central line for us. Once this happened and we could actually get medicines in him he finally settled down and his oxygen level and heart rate stabilized. But now it was taking multiple medications to sedate him and multiple medicines to help his lungs and his heart rate. We all knew that his prognosis was very poor. That was a very hard conversation with his mother. That night on call he did okay though his heart rate still dropped a few times requiring extra medicine. I slept some but woke up every hour or so out of anxiety more than anything. Friday morning just as I was getting out of bed for the day I got a call that another of our kiddos was having trouble. So without brushing my teeth, or changing out of my scrubs from the day before I ran back up to the hospital. One of our kids came to us a week ago from another hospital with multiple abdominal abscesses and a horrible pneumonia. He was, until that morning, the most stable of our critical patients. We rushed him to xray and found out that essentially only one of his lungs is working currently. 

            I left after ICU rounds to get about 30 minutes of sleep, get ready and then left with the physio department to deliver a wheelchair to a child with Cerebral Palsy out in the village. We were able to custom fit the wheelchair for him. Watching him smile was incredible. Due to his condition he cannot sit on his own and spent most of his life lying in bed. I watched him grin as his eyes looked all around. His entire family and many members of the community came out to welcome us. We were able to share that this chair was a gift and that God loved this child as He does all people. We shared that Jesus died for each of them and prayed over them all. And then of course in normal African fashion we had chia before heading back to Tenwek. It was a nice end to a very busy week.

            Yesterday I had my first day off since arriving at Tenwek last week and it felt very similar to the description of running up a hill as described above. To be honest, I don’t mind working a lot. And I even considered going to the hospital yesterday just to help. But I knew that since arrival I had not really had time to sit before the Lord and just be still. I could feel it in my soul. I had been living in survival mode just trying to keep up with the medicine. My worst fear coming here is that I would make things worse by my incompetence. And several times in the past 10 days Satan has played on those fears making my pride roar loudly. But I knew God wanted me here. What I’m realizing however is that He wanted me here so He can work on me, not because I am needed. He will accomplish His work in the lives of these children with whomever is available to serve. But He invited me here to refine me. Most times when I serve overseas it seems so much easier to hear God and I ‘feel’ closer to Him. Typically there are less distractions and more time to be still. I guess I just assumed that would happen again as effortlessly as before. But all last week as I would pray He felt distant and my time with the Lord was always rushed (typically because most mornings I had at least one critical patient trying to code on me). But yesterday morning I could just be still. I woke up that morning on edge with every little thing making me way too anxious. I knew I needed the Lord to intervene, and He did. 

            It is always amazing to me how much peace and joy come when you simply shift your focus. I remember when I started medical school my prayer was that no matter how intense and overwhelming medicine became that it would not cause me to lose sight of the God who called me there. For those of you in medicine you know that it can easily become all consuming. But there is only One who is an All-consuming Fire. Just like Peter in the midst of the storm as he walked on the water. The circumstances and situations around us may require attention and may  be drastic (code after code after code and all the alarms). But the focus, and the center of our universe should never shift from Christ. The Lord knows these circumstances and situation better than we ever could. He knows the exact pathophysiology of each patient I encounter and how it has been corrupted by disease (ultimately sin). He knows exactly what each patient needs and exactly what I need. And He has promised to supply all of those needs for His children, whether here on Earth or ultimately in Heaven. And it is a supply that never runs out (something I have learned to not take for granted because that happens often here). No, His supply is according to the riches of His mercy. Riches that we could never comprehend. In fact He says to seek Him first and then all these other things will be added. So this weekend with the rest and downtime the Lord has given me, He is using it to redirect my focus and refine me. He has pointed out idols that I have allowed to creep back into my life and areas where I have lost my footing. He is humbling me, and I am so thankful. For those whom the Lord loves He chastens. I know He has work for me to do here that is not medical. Work on myself and maybe some encouragement for others. As I have been praying through things it seems I am to pour into our pediatric team: make disciples who then make disciples. And of course always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you no matter what situation or circumstance. I have been brushing up on the Gospel and rememorizing many of the verses and it has been water for my soul. I pray the Lord brings you to such a place no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. 

Deep Breath

Deep breath. 

 

I arrived at Tenwek hospital last Wednesday. It was nice coming back to a familiar place though many of the people I have worked with in the past are currently not here. I knew it would take me a while to readjust to hospital medicine and the best way to acclimated fastest is to jump in head first, right? My first day on service I was on call that night. It felt like it took forever to get those wheels turning in my brain on rounds that morning. Our peds team consists of myself, a family medicine physician, 2 medical officers who are very well trained, and several residents and students. For my first few days there was also another pediatrician from the states helping with the service and I was so thankful to overlap with her some. The service overall seems busier and has more critical patients than I remember having last time. With each day of rounding I settled into things a little more. 

 

We have already had a significant amount of pathology. In medicine that can be fun and interesting to see strange and varying diseases but at the same time it is usually not good for the patients. In my first 4 days of work I have seen HIV, TB, Cryptococcal meningitis, Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia, cerebral malaria, filariasis, toxic epidermal necrolysis that progressed to Steven Jonson’s Syndrome, a ventriculoperitoneal shunt infected with Giardia, multiple abdominal abscess that seeded a pneumonia in a kid after surgery (from an outside hospital), rheumatic heart disease and heart failure, nephrotic syndrome, little babies with multiple congenital anomalies or intraventricular hemorrhages, multiple pneumonia cases, and liver failure from herbal meds. Right before I came, the team did an exchange transfuse for a baby with a bilirubin level that skyrocketed. Thankfully I got to discharge that kid home recently. Praise the Lord!

 

This weekend I was on call and the patients kept us on our toes! On Saturday I ran my first pediatric code since residency and by the grace of God it was successful. An infant pulled out his breathing tube and his heart rate dropped because he couldn’t breathe. We had another baby admitted that evening for pneumonia that initially did well on oxygen but worsened throughout the day. That night we decided to intubated after trying CPAP. It took us a good 1.5 hours to get her to stabilize and I was very concerned that we would lose her right there. We battled and fought for these two infants most of the weekend. Multiple times I thought one would not make it. And of course they both decompensated around 1am last night. I spent about 4 hours at the hospital trying to stabilize them both. I was so thankful for the 7 hour time difference between here and the US. It allowed me to ‘phone a friend’ who walked me through how to stabilize these very sick lungs. A few of our other really sick kiddos seemed to be improving yesterday and I was very thankful the Lord had sustained us through the weekend despite how critical so many of our patients were. I felt like if I could get them to Monday with the whole team then just maybe they would make it. However, as I was getting ready for rounds this morning I was paged to the bed of our infant with TEN/SJS. He looked so much better yesterday that we started feeding him because we knew he had to have the nutrition in order to recover. But, this morning he aspirated on his food. When I arrived, the surgical team was intubating him. For 3 hours we worked trying to get oxygen to his lungs. The problem was that his disease was also inside his throat and esophagus and he started bleeding internally with all our efforts. He passed away at 10:30 this morning. At the same time one of my pneumonia kids starting fighting the ventilator and decompensating. I was literally running between both beds for over an hour. At one point we all stopped and I just laid my hands on one baby and prayed that the Lord would intervene. We tried everything we could think for them both. Then suddenly, the oxygen level in my baby with pneumonia picked up. I don’t actually think we did anything. But I know God answered our prayers. As of right now he is still okay but still so sick. And then just like that, after 3 hours of running around and one baby dying, we had to pick back up and go see all of our other patients. My morning ended with a hard conversation with a mother who’s baby is terminally ill. I had to explain that her baby will most likely die in the next few days and there is nothing we can do. I sat with her for a while as she wept and we prayed together. 

 

I have definitely had moments the past few days where I had to stop and take a deep breath remembering where my strength comes from. Much of this can be overwhelming and it is easy to throw your hands up because it is so obvious that you’re not enough. I had a moment one night as I was staring at a ventilator wracking my brain for what to do (that has been happening too much recently) where I started question why in the world I came or ever thought that I could be useful here. It is too easy for the enemy to get a foothold. I stayed up that night refreshing myself on details of ventilator management. It got me thinking on the delicate balance of striving hard to do our best but then leaving the outcome to the Lord. Yes, I want to be a better physician for these kids and their families; not only to better serve them, but also because I represent Almighty God. And yet, I have to be able to lay it all on the alter for God to do what He wishes with my sacrifice. Yet, this is not a new thing that God requires. Did He not require the very best of Cain and Able on the alter? And so, I’m learning to always strive to be better; not for my glory, or even better patient outcomes, but simply that I may be able to lay my best on His alter. It is a hard lesson. 

 

The baby that is currently giving us the most problems is an 8 week old baby I admitted a few days ago from an another hospital with severe pneumonia. They had him on some antibiotics for a few weeks without improvement and he then started dropping his oxygen levels. The medical officer on with me that night is very good and so when she called I knew something was up. He had to be intubated because he couldn’t keep his oxygen level up otherwise. But he is a very strong baby and was fighting us like crazy. We were breathing for him but he resisted every breath so that the oxygen was not getting to him. If only he would give it up he would be able to breathe. We had to sedate him heavily to get him to calm down enough for him to stabilized. His body needs to fight this infection, but then stop fighting us when we are helping. 

 

But am I not in a similar situation with God right now. I need to fight to learn and strive to better understand disease and pathology in order to better help my patients. But I also need to surrender those same patients to the Lord. How many times do we have destructive behaviors and fight God with all we have because we don’t like what He is doing. We know He only does good things. He is a good father and knows how to give good gifts (Matt 7:11). But just like this infant sometimes when He is refining us (maybe disciplining us, maybe not), we resist that unpleasant sensation/situation and fight with all we have. But are we not really just making everything worse? We know from Scripture that He calls us to surrender, and when we do He has His way in us which is for our good and His glory. Are we going to surrender on our own? Or will He have to force us? Thankfully, in the end God will have His way in us. We have the hope that He will finish what He starts in us. Unlike this infant, we can trust that no matter how we mess things up, God is powerful enough to still have His way. But we can definitely make it harder on ourselves. Obviously, we can and should still have emotions during these times. And expressing those is healthy and part of how God made us. But maybe we don’t have to resist Him. Lord, I don’t like what you’re doing and I’m hurt/angry/sad/etc but I know you are God and you are good. So, I surrender to whatever it is you are doing and trust it is for my good and your glory. 

 

If only my little 8 week old could learn that same lesson . . . 

 

Thank you all for your prayers. They are felt and very needed. Please continues to pray for these very sick children, for their parents and families during these hard times, and for the team, that the Lord would continue to sustain us. Please also pray that in the midst of the crazy and business of the medicine that the Lord would give me more opportunities to pray and talk with patient’s and families of His goodness and love. 

On To Another Adventure

Ten years ago this fall I walked into my parents house after weeks of fasting and praying over the direction of my life. I had gone to college to do what was fun and comfortable and made sense but then someone called me out and asked me to pray about what God wanted for my life. At the time, she was suggesting medical school and that seemed like an impossible task. Nevertheless I prayed and fasted more so out of obedience. But my heart wasn’t in it. Until that night. I remember it clear as day. My father met me at the front door with his book in hand. Someone had given him a book with facts about all of the countries in the world and their people groups etc. He told me about the infant mortality rate in the country he was reading about. It was so high because there were no women physicians to care for the women there. And as if time stood still in that moment I knew God had called me, as a women, to be a physician in order to reach the underserved. It’s been a long hard journey, but now 10 years later I’m on my way to Kenya to serve as a physician. I have visited Tenwek before but as a resident with close oversight. In the coming 4 weeks I will fill in for the long term pediatricians as an attending. So many emotions as I sit on the plane. The past few days have been a little stressful getting everything ready. The anticipation just adds to the stress. But now finally I can sit and focus. Focus on the One who called me 10 years ago and the One who is calling me now.  

This past week I was on vacation with my family in a Gatlinburg. We typically get a cabin just by Little Pigeon River at a little swimming hole with a big rock perfect for jumping off into the water. As an added benefit my grandfather was able to come join us for a day and swim in the river with us. He is a great reminder to me of the grace and goodness of the Lord. He grew up in that area when his family worked as tenant farmers in what is now the great smokey mountains national park. As a kid he would walk down to that very rock and jump off it to swim in that river. This vacation he told us how they ended up moving to Knoxville when he was around age 9-10. During the Great Depression the farmer his family worked for did not have money to pay them. They skimped by as the Lord provided. But then the national park came in and essentially said they all had to leave. My great grandfather had no choice since he didn’t own any land. The farmer decided to move his farm to Knoxville and asked my grandfather’s family to come along but my great grandfather was not convinced.  What ultimately changed his mind was a visit he took to Knoxville to check out the local church. Essentially the Lord lead him right to the doorstep of a deacon of the local church and after discussing the church my great grandfather decided it was okay to move to Knoxville.  I never knew him, but it sounds like he had his priorities right. My grandfather got his degree in Knoxville after serving in the navy. He worked his way up to being CEO of the same company he started working for out of college. But then retired early to go serve in Rwanda. He and my grand mother were there when the genocide occurred and had to be evacuated. They then helped in refugee camps. To this day he says those were some of his best memories during his years in Africa. This is a short glimpse Into my heritage and the family the Lord gave me. Psalms 103:17 (CSB) “But from eternity to eternity the LORD’s faithful love is toward those who fear him, and his righteousness toward the grandchildren.” What an incredible blessing to be one of those grandchildren! 

You see my life and any ‘good’ thing that comes from it is all a result of immense grace. I did nothing to deserve to be born in a Christian home where I was taught about the One True God. I did nothing to deserve to be brought up in a country where I have opportunities galore. Yes, I have worked hard the past 10 years to be a physician and be able to help people. But what I deserve . . . I deserve death and an eternity in hell separated from the only Being who can satisfy me and make me whole. BUT GOD, who is overflowing with mercy and grace called me out of death and gave me life. He gave me this family and heritage and these opportunities. Who am I to waste them? So, I lay myself, the gifts, talents and material wealth He has given me all on the alter. I have been the recipient of grace that is beyond measure and now I get the opportunity to be poured out as His hands and feet to the sick and hurting, those close to physical and spiritual death. And while the last 10 years have given me a few tools to help their physical bodies, the true gift and best thing I can give them is the very Gospel that saved me. That Christ came to Earth and paid the penalty for our sin and we can have forgiveness and righteousness and a relationship with Almighty God! That void that we all feel that we always try to dull and nothing works: I have the answer, and He is more beautiful than you could ever know! 

What is even more glorious is that we can all bring this amazing news to anyone at any time. I don’t have to be at a hospital in Africa to be His hands and feet. You and I can do this everyday with anyone the Lord brings to us. May He awaken us to the greatness of who His is and His Gospel! May it permeate us and overflow from our souls onto everyone around us! May we not be able to keep it in our bones! I’m on my way to fulfill something the Lord called me to long ago. But we can all fulfill the purpose He has called us to each and everyday. 

1 Corinthians 15:55-58 (CSB) 55 “Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

I don’t know your story or where you have come from. But my life is evidence that God makes beauty from ashes and brings the dead to life. If He can do this is me, I have every confidence He can do so in you also. The question is, will you surrender