"We are the clay and You our potter" Isa 64:8

I believe part of why God works in our life is so that He can use what we learn and struggle with to help and encourage others. Therefore in this blog I will try to be open and honest about my imperfections and struggles. Tomorrow morning I will take my 7 th medical school exam. Thus far I have been below average on all of them. Ok not too bad I realize these are medical students! On two exams thus far I have barely passed, and yet haven’t been too stressed because I know God wants me here and that success is in obedience not outcome. Today however, I found out I failed my first test ever! Like not even D+ failed it! The bad thing is that I studied so hard. I really thought I knew it! I thought things were going to improve but they only got worse. I wanted to melt and throw a fit and ask God why He would bring me here to fail. And then I remembered what I wrote for my facebook status this morning: “Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession th...

1 Corinthians 7:30 says, “and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess; and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be free of concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.” May first few weeks of medical school, I have spent a good majority complaining. I didn’t want to leave Knoxville, my family, my friends. I wasn’t ready to start working hard again, and I definitely didn’t want to work as hard as I had to. I still wanted to sleep in and have fun, but I couldn’t. I was miserable. Don’t get me wrong I was and am still so happy to be here, but it is NOT fun! My quiet times were suffering, and I had very little joy. I knew I was only ...

These first two weeks of medical school have been a whirl wind. When I moved up to Christiansburg VA, I was still very much jet-lagged and trying to process all God did in East Africa. Every day I woke up early with my stomach in knots with so much anxiety I couldn’t think straight. The weekend before I started school I drove home to see Julie when she came home from over-seas. It was great seeing my family, but still I could not relax or even sleep very much. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why I was so anxious. Yes I was starting medical school the next day, yes, I had just moved away from home, and yes, I had just returned from a summer long trip to a very difficult culture to live in, but I didn’t think any of those things themselves were keeping me awake; maybe just the combination of it all. It was incredibly difficult to drive away that Sunday afternoon. Those four hours to VA in the pouring rain seemed to take forever! I couldn’t eat, and so I just drove. About ...