Reminiscing

    
     I am back, in my final semester of nursing school, sitting in class talking about critically ill patients as my professor begins speaking. She sets the stage for a scenario of a dying child in the intensive care unit... she continues talking and my mind can no longer focus. The image of hundreds of hospital beds crowded in a single room floods my thoughts. Each bed holding two or three children at minimum and the ventilator machines and monitors are run by family members surrounding them. One specific imagine stained my mind at that very moment. A nine year old girl laying in her mothers arms convulsing, eyes rolled to the back of her head, and foaming at the mouth. Rabies had taken its final course on her body and there was no treatment to carry her out of this state. Helpless, and nothing left to do but wait for her death. I began to think of the mother and how horrifying it must feel to hold your daughter in your arms knowing she would die in that very position. I thought about what it means to be the nurse caring for that patient and her mother. I wondered why the Lord placed me there at that moment to witness this and why just speaking about sick children rushed my mind with this specific moment in Malawi...
     I've been home for almost 3 months now and still the memories of my time in Africa hit me in subtle ways when I least expect it. It takes me by surprise how vivid the images are and how quickly I can be removed from life around me and submerged into the emotions I felt in these moments. Both my experiences in South Africa and Malawi have impacted me in ways I would have never imagined and my hope and dream is go back and serve, first the Lord and second those in need. But I expected to leave what I had seen and come back to it all in the Lord's timing, what I didn't expect was to have these experiences overwhelm me while I was living in a world so different. Its been both a challenge and a reward, a heartache and a joy altogether. Praising the Lord for He is my strength and my song, my refuge and my redeemer. Without his prevailing love and mercy I would be unable to see how His glory is being revealed through each one of these situations that cause my heart so much agony. May His glory truly always be unveiled even in the darkest closets of our hurting souls.... 

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,

my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

and I am saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me;

the torrents of destruction assailed me;

 the cords of Sheol entangled me;

the snares of death confronted me.

 In my distress I called upon the Lord;

to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,

and my cry to him reached his ears.

Psalm 18:1-6