Green Pastures

A year has passed since I last wrote a blog entry. I realize now more than ever that it's the hardships of our lives that write good stories. So much of this last year has been a much needed season of green pastures. When the race is easy to run, and I'm breathing fine, I don't feel the need to pour out my soul, which is usually why I write.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful for this period of time that God has gracefully bestowed...a time during which I don't have to fight for joy or struggle to be in the present because I'm too busy looking backwards regretfully or looking forward idealistically hoping for better days. Lately, my only complaint is being tired, but I'm tired from my life being absolutely full of doing things that I love.

I wanted to catch this blog up on this past year of my life, but not without recapping what the race looked like for me before this year of green pastures arrived. David and I have been married 5 1/2 years. And about 75% of our marriage has been clinging to each other in the rain.

Year 1: My parents' marriage of 25 years dissolved. Anxiety and depression set up camp in my soul, unresolved medical problems plagued my body, and I felt as if I had no idea who I was anymore.
                                             
Year 2: we started med school together until I withdrew a few months in due to illness of body, mind, and soul. Pain, panic, suffering, silence from God...the worst year of my life...and David had med school on top of it all. I went through a lot of counseling, saw a lot of doctors, took a lot of meds and supplements, and cried a lot of tears.

Year 3: I finally felt well for the first time in years. I decided to pursue medicine again but this time through PA school. I got accepted in December 2011...2 months later, I found myself staring at a + pregnancy test with a migraine in shock.

Year 3 was a hard one for our marriage. I wasn't ready to be a mom. My body was barely well enough to handle such stress, and I didn't really even know if I could have children with all the problems I'd had growing up. David was in his 1st year of rotations, studying for boards, and stressed without relief. My labor was long, and my postpartum period was even longer. It was so hard to see the light. So hard to just keep walking.

Year 4: We saw the sun again. David's year was lighter. We applied to residency and PA school together, and even though staying at home with Blake was exhausting, I could sense God's presence again. I led a Bible study, shared a home with some wonderful friends, and I decided that happiness is a choice, and it's up to me to pursue it. No matter what people say or think, who I am is up to me and God.
                                                     

Year 5: David graduated from med school at last, I got accepted to my favorite PA program at Wake Forest, and that's where he matched for residency. We went to Africa as a family, and I faced my fears of serving overseas after all that happened to me in India so many years ago where I picked up the parasites that wrecked my body. That was also the place I lost my rose-colored glasses through which I used to see the world.

When we moved to Winston-Salem this past May, I remember feeling so much relief to be leaving Virginia behind us. I couldn't believe how good it felt to watch the snows of winter melt from my life and to feel the heat of summer. There was a large part of me that wanted to hate the years I spent sick and lonely in Virginia, but it wouldn't be fair. God matured me in that desert in ways I truly needed to grow. He provided for me every step of the way, and I developed some amazing friendships in that furnace. I read many amazing books, learned to serve in obscurity, and I learned so much about who I am and who I want to become. And of course, as the name of this blog implies, all those trials reminded me that this is not my home. I am here running the race God has laid out for me, and he will help me finish strong. I know the next uphill is coming. But for now, I am just enjoying the view from the mountain, looking back on all God has taught me and looking forward with a renewed enthusiasm for what he has planned.

Winston-Salem, to me, has felt like a refuge in comparison to the last few years of my life. We've found an amazing church with a Bible Fellowship group provided truly by the hand of God, and we are close to David's parents and receive lots of help from them with Blake. Our training is vigorous, but we are in it together, and it's easier for me to smile than frown these days, and I haven't been able to say that for a while.

                                     
PA school is time-intensive, but because of all God has taught me the hard way, I know the limitations of my body and have pursued balance from day 1. I have not neglected my time with God, my sleep, my husband, my son, or my calling to serve those God puts in my path. His perspective is the perspective I strive to seek after and maintain even with all the busyness.

I absolutely love my program, and I know that being a PA is the best career for me. And it feels good to learn medicine simply because I enjoy it and want to use it to provide for our family and to serve others with the talents and gifts God has given me. Medicine is NOT my calling, although I used to think it was. My calling is to follow Jesus by dying to myself daily. My calling is to be like Him in every area of my life and to glorify Him with whatever I'm doing, whether it's cleaning up Cheerios, changing diapers, folding clothes, or studying with a friend. Because the reality is, like Job, anyone can lose it all in a second. The only true assurance we have in this life is that Jesus is Lord and he is MY Lord and Savior. He knows suffering as Immanuel, "God with us," he has walked this earth and knows the horrors thereof, and he said he will never leave us...and he will get us home.