New hobby

I have always loved photography and photo editing but my newest passion is making photo mosaics....so much fun! Luckily I was able to find a free program online called Andrea Mosaic to help support this passion as I don't have the money for a fancy program like Photoshop (although a girl can dream). Here are a few of the ones I have made so far (click on the picture to make it bigger and see all the smaller pics):

I made this one for my friend Sarah's graduation

This one was for my friend Mary's wedding

And this one is just for fun

While studying for Step 1 (which I finished on Monday....yay!), I often dreamed of what it would be like if my job were just making photo mosaics all day. In the meantime, guess I will continue it as a hobby, but if you know someone who wants one tell them to get in touch with me and we can work out a price! ;)

a gift from God (in the form of chocolate, raisins and friendship)

Don't you just love when God knows exactly what you need when you need it? For the last several weeks, I have been feeling really lonely and left out. Maybe it is because I have been a studying hermit lately, but it seems like I have been missing out on a lot. The biggest void that I have been feeling is in close female relationships. I am blessed to have friends all over the world (doing amazing things for God I might add!) but the lack of the physical closeness of my girl friends is sorely felt at times. And despite having an amazing community group, I have found it hard to cultivate the same type of close female friendships and most of my efforts have felt very one-sided. In short, I was in need of some encouragement.

Enter Sarah.

As I was studying tonight at Panera, she brought me this study "care package" (complete with chocolate, caffeine and raisins and the scientific evidence to prove they would help my studying ;)) :


It was such a bright spot in my day....let's be honest - in the last couple weeks! I think I just needed a reminder that I wasn't forgotten - by others or God. I love that God allows us to partner with Him to bring encouragement to others and I am thankful that He saw fit to bless me today when I needed it most.

out of the mouth of babes

At church as of late, we have had a sermon series focused on "the love chapter," 1 Corinthians 13. This week at Wired small group, we spent some time talking to our high school students about love and asked them to interpret 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 in their own words. Here is what one of our students came up with:

If I can recite my entire history book out loud in front of my whole class, but don't have love, I'm just a headache. If I can figure out the end of every movie I see, and if I have enough faith to bungee jump off a cliff--WITHOUT THE BUNGEE--and trust God to catch me, and don't have love, I'm not getting anything to my benefit. If I give to every Christian organization and then go and be a beggar, but have no love, it was all pointless.

Love doesn't mind waiting in lines; it is kind whenever someone hates it; it's not jealous of the girl who's always the center of attention; it doesn't see itself as even a tiny bit better than anyone else. Love isn't rude enough to take the last piece of it's favorite cake when there's a little kid behind it in line who wants it; it doesn't blow up when someone says something rude, and it doesn't gossip to friends about how many times a person gave you a mean look. Love is really nice, and it hates lies. It stands up for it's little brother; it really hopes that your most competitive teammate does well, and it loves it when it finally scored an A in algebra.

Pretty insightful huh? I love seeing high school students who really "get it" and are living their lives for Jesus, mostly because it took me until high school to even start pursuing Christ and I wish I would have "gotten it" sooner.

Just for fun, here are our pictorial representations of the opposite of 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient

Love is kind

[Love] does not boast

wahooooo!

I am officially done with 2nd year medical school! (also supposedly the hardest year) Pending one more test grade I passed all my classes and am done with class for good :) The next month I will be studying for the first part of my boards, Step 1. I take them on June 8 then have 2 1/2 weeks off (including a trip to Jamaica) before I start 3rd year rotations.

I am actually looking forward to 3rd year. It won't be easy but I am thankful that I will be doing hands on learning instead of sitting in lectures. Hopefully, it will also help me decide what area of medicine I am interested in. Plus, I hear I may actually get to have a semi-normal life which I am definitely excited about.

Praying for perseverance and motivation for the next month and attempting to study as to the Lord!

motivation

...lately I have been lacking it. School has been so overwhelming that everything else seems to fall by the wayside (including blogging), not to mention my motivation for studying has been severely waning. To be honest I have felt like everything I'm doing is sub-par these days.

However, in the last several days (thanks to some encouragement and advice from people I am in community with), I have found that when I am intentional about working (and studying, and cleaning...) as to the Lord, that my stinky attitude gets much better. In short, when I make Christ my motivation, I am a lot more motivated! Don't get me wrong, I still don't do this every moment of my day, but in those moments when I do, I find that even the most mundane tasks can be joyful and worshipful.

I covet your prayers in the next week or so as I finish up school with some high stakes exams that I have to pass to pass second year and for the next month and half as I study for my boards. Pray that my focus can be on Christ and His will and that my days would Spirit-led instead of driven by stress and fear. Grace and peace to you all. Namaste!

reflecting

While Janine was here, I had the pleasure of hearing her speak to the Wired group about her work with Nuru which was #1 - just great and #2 - a challenge for me to find and pursue the things I am passionate about and allow God to show me who He has made me so that I can better serve Him. It would be easy (and is much of the time!) to wish that I had Janine's (or someone else's) life, or gifting, or abilities, but instead I am trying to learn to tap into my Creator and allow Him to show me how He has made me unique. Janine shared a favorite quote of mine during her talk:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have seen this principle at work in Janine's life through the amazing things she has been able to do by utilizing and embracing the talents that God has given her, but it is something I struggle with in my own life. I have always been taught that humbleness is paramount, but sometimes I think I take that a step too far. I still don't want to brag about myself but often I also shy away from "bragging" about what God is doing with me. I also have a hard time recognizing my gifts because it's hard for me to say I'm "good" at something.

Today as I was reflecting on all of this, a song written by Brent Jackson (a super talented musician who interns and leads worship at our church), ironically called "Reflecting", came to mind. If you want to hear the entire song you can do so here, but the chorus is what struck me:

"So if you ever thought you've seen a light in me//He is reflecting//The sun shines on the moon and me//The beauty comes in the reflecting."

This got me thinking that when I hide or deny the gifts God has given me, I dampen the light that He is trying to reflect through my life. That still doesn't mean that I know what all my gifts are, but it does mean I want to be able to be open to God showing me those things as well as how to acknowledge and use them for His glory. Here's to reflecting a tiny piece of the beauty and nature of our infinite God and allowing Him to shine through me in both my weaknesses and my strengths.

lately

It's been a while since I updated, partially due to the craziness of life as a med student and partially due to the fact that we have had people staying at our house every night, except one, for six days. It was great hosting Derek and his TOMS shoes teammates as well as Janine and Gaby, her Nuru co-worker, but it doesn't leave much time for blogging. So here's what's been happening lately:

• Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Feathers! I was blessed to be able to attend Adam and Chrissy's wedding last Saturday and celebrate with them. The bride looked beautiful and it was a wonderful celebration of a couple brought together by the ultimate Matchmaker (with a little help from Tiffany).
• After 7 long months, I finally got to see Janine again! It was great to have her here for a week and to hear about her time in Kenya as well as what God is doing in her life now. (More about what God taught me through her visit in my next post).
  
• While Janine was here, we were able to have a "family breakfast" at our house with the members of our community group and other friends. Jamie was a huge help, handling the eggs and bacon while I worked on pancakes. It was a great time and gave Janine and Derek a chance to connect with a lot of people that they haven't seen in quite a while. Here are a few pics from the morning:
  

Jamie and I cooking breakfast and Janine making a weird face apparently

"Normal" family photo

...and not so normal ;)

• On a personal note, I feel like I have been struggling for a while with a lack of desire and motivation to work on my relationship with God. I have been lazy about prayer, reading the Word, most things actually. Mostly, I have just felt beat down by the cares and stress of life. Lately, however, I feel God drawing me back to Himself and renewing my desire for Him, which is such a blessing. I am grateful for a Savior who is faithful even when I am not and for brothers and sisters in Christ who not only challenge me to grow closer to God but who show me what that looks like with their lives (another HUGE blessing of Janine's visit). Rob Bell asks the question: If someone looked at only your life, how would they answer the question "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" Praying that my life will be more of a reflection of the resurrection power during this Easter season and beyond.