Blessings...

When I can hold my sinful eyes open long enough, it never ceases to amaze me how many miracles God works on a daily basis in a world that is broken... healing friendships, drawing people to himself, providing physical healing, opening doors for his message to be spread, loving me in unexpected ways. How He loves us...

How He Loves

What a blessing to have a brother who shares awesome music with me...


How He Loves...
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath 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 all,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us

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 unforseen kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain this regrets,
When I think about, the way…

by: John McMillan (with a wonderful edit by David Crowder)

Sad, but true...

I forgot to bring notebook paper (or any other kind of paper) to the coffee shop where I'm studying tonight... reducing me to taking notes on napkins. Lots and lots of napkins.

Journeys end...

It seems that the closer that I get to the end of the didactic year of the Yale Physician Associate program, the more that my mind wanders and begins to fixate on anything but school. The thing that has captured my mind the past couple of weeks has been Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which just wrapped up its run at Shakespeare in the Park in NYC. I had the joy of seeing it twice... once with Elizabeth & Chris & Megan R. and once last week Sunday with Courtney. Each time, I just left filled with joy and a smile on my face...
Thus, I made the somewhat insane decision to attempt to get tickets one last time during it's closing weekend. After a wonderful evening w/ my friend Megan D. at the Yale Club (who would have ever thought I would get to have an evening at the Yale club in NYC? Wine, cheese and the view from the 22nd floor roof terrace!) and 4 hours of sleep, I got into a cab and traveled to 81st St and Central Park West to join the line for tickets... WHICH WAS ALREADY 7 BLOCKS LONG (yes, at 2:55 am...). I was number 418... but I was hopeful. After getting situated, I pulled out my laptop and popped in "The Holiday" which fittingly begins with a quote from Twelfth Night.

"Journeys end in lovers meeting"

And in one brief moment... I had the most amazing glimpse. Journeys end in lovers meeting. Which is what will happen when my journey ends...

" Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears... Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, 12

My mind cannot even wrap around seeing the face of the Lord fully... the joy and beauty and perfection of that day. The end of one journey and yet... the most amazing completion and continuation of my eternal story... so full of joy.

So at 3am... at 88th and Central Park West... wrapped in a blanket.. I started crying.
The ticket story ends at 1:25 pm - no tickets for Liz & me. But I had a wonderful time with Liz this weekend... walking around the upper west side. Dinner. Watching a movie. Sleeping lots. Church. What a blessing to have family so close. But that's the subject of another post.

To wrap up this post, I'm putting in a couple of pictures (which I most certainly DID NOT TAKE) from they play... At the very end there was a song which then transitioned into a group dance number... At one point Raul Esparza (Duke Orsino) lifted Anne Hathaway (Viola) and spun her around... that moment captured a glimpse of joy.
Somehow... I feel like this is what it will be like... to dance and spin... to know and be known fully.

Life...

I wrote this email to a dear friend during class today...

I'm sitting in an abortion lecture
Bottling in these feelings...
Because all I can think about is peanut's picture
and It's breaking my heart
Absolutely breaking my heart
They keep talking about how safe it is for the mother... how the risks are less of maternal death in aborition than in full pregnancy
I want to walk out
But i can't
Because I do need to know about this
For my patients
In case they've had one - or in case they're thinking about having one
But this is just hard
And I want to scream
And ask about the life of the baby
When did we decide that on the whole it's OK to do away with this life?
Yes, there are extreme circumstances... where I don't know the answer
But these circumstances happen like 1% of the time
The other 99%...
The question was just asked" Are the babies alive when they're born"
The answer is no - because they place an injection in the fetal heart to stop it
HOW IS THIS OK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

All that to say...
Put your hand on the bump
Give the baby my love
Because I'm praying for the baby
and for the babies that could be your baby's friends...

The Hand of God

This weekend, I had the chance to escape to NYC and spend some time with my beautiful cousin and her husband. We had been planning this weekend for a while (I think we first talked about it in early May), and the entire weekend was supposed to revolve around Shakespeare in the Park. Liz and I were planning to head to the Delacorte Theater (an open air theater in central park) and wait in line for our FREE tickets. (supposedly half of the experience is waiting in line for tickets... we were planning on being there from 9am until they started handing out the tickets at 1pm). However while eating dinner we saw the weather report for the next day... where the flooding warnings started around 2pm and thunderstorms were supposed to go through the night. Thus we scrapped the ticket plans. We headed into the city the next afternoon, with plans to go to the Met and play the rest of the day by ear. But while we were on the train, we decided just to swing by the box office and see if we couldn't pick up tickets... thus, we arrived at 1:37, walked right up to the window and got our 4 seats. We were excited to get the seats, and started praying for the rain to stop. To get out of the rain, we cut across the park and headed into the Met (yay for "recommended" ticket prices). At the Met they have a fairly large collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin... this one really spoke to me... it's called the hand of God. I love this image of the hand coming out of the rock and just holding these two people. I think I probably looked at it for close to 10 minutes.
And that evening, the show did go on. In Central Park, with the New York skyline in the background, we watched "The Twelfth Night or What You Will" starring Anne Hathaway, Raul Esparza, Audra McDonald, and Stark Sands just to name a few. It was amazing. Easily one of the top 3 shows that I've ever seen. The acting was suburb. Their comedic timing was perfect, getting the most our of every line (with every joke that Shakespeare wrote in). The director got a band called Hem to write a score for the show and set the songs to music, and the band (2 guitars, a fiddle, a mandolin, a wooden flute and two drums with the occasional bag pipe) opened and closed the show. They were incredible. One of the songs, 'Come Away Death' left me in tears with its beauty (Raul Esparza and Anne Hathaway's harmonies helped with that). A recording of the music is coming out in the summer... I'm already saving up. There was one rain delay in the middle of the second half. But we just put up our umbrellas and waited it out. I feel like my words can't do this show justice... it was a joy to watch... and I'm trying to figure out how to go back and see it again :-)
Even more than that, it was wonderful to spend time with Liz and Chris... away from New Haven and the stress here. Only 9 more weeks until I'm officially done with the didactic year of the Yale Physician Associate program.

To be held...

I should be studying. Ear/Nose/Throat test this week, and I should be studying. Instead, after coming home from church I watched the new BBC version of Sense & Sensibility. It was beautiful. And thus, I find myself sitting here and longing for something that is not yet mine. I told myself that I wasn't going to let Valentine's Day bother me this year. And it didn't. Until I had to drive around for 30 minutes last night trying to find a parking spot at my friend's apartment because the entire populous of New Haven went out to dinner last night. Even then I was just more frustrated with the situation (or non-parking situation) as the case may be. But after watching Sense and Sensibility... I find myself longing... longing to be cherished and loved and pursued and treasured. To have someone just to talk with or sit with. To do life with. To grow closer to Christ together. I look at where I'm at in my life, and rationally I know that it's just not time yet. I keep clinging to the promise that ALL things are made beautiful in HIS time. This afternoon though... I just yearn to be held.