Never Alone

"You are not alone / Know that I will fight the tide to be together / When you feel alone / Listen to this song to make your heart feel better." - Sanctus Real

I am listening to "Alone" by Sanctus Real. I thought about the video that a few people from my D-Team made the Spring of 2005. I remember that video because it was the first music video I helped make and that in the middle of making it, I recieved a phone call that I had to go back to Denver becauase my grandpa had worsened in the Intensive Care Unit. I remember crying with the very people that made the music video around me as we prayed. When I got back from that school year the following fall semester, my grandpa had passed, and when I watched the completed video, I just cried becauase I remembered it.

I just bought the song off of iTunes and as I'm listening to it and "Everything About You", My mind went back to my undergrad years which weren't so long ago, but in a way they were.

I started out a nerdy premed student who know God had to be important but I had no idea how He would change me. I became Christian mid 1st semester Freshman year and the changes began. Then the pain started. My uncle had his first occurance of lung cancer and that was scary but it was eradicated pretty quickly with chemotherapy. Freshman year was great. Sophomore year's worst pain was O-Chem. That was it. And I managed to get a C in O-Chem II. God revealed Himself as Creator to me then and I made an attempt to show my openly atheist professor that there was a God. My classmate and brother-in-Christ handed our professor a tract.

After my sophomore year the pain increased. My uncle was sick again with a terminal recurrence of cancer. I also idealized a person whom I wanted so badly to be there with me, and God had to break me from that obsession. Junior year my uncle got worse and died. I had to hold my pain in as I helped another family member deal with it. Yet I knew God was holding me close. I don't remember that much of 1st semester junior year, but I know that God continued to make Himself real through my reading of His Word and by the testimony and witness of my friends at CSU.

Second semester Junior year around Finals week, my grandpa got sick. Two back to back hardships. Studying for the MCAT was my reality check. Looking at pictures of the human body or molecules for organic chemistry review made me realize God was sovereign and rational even though these situations didn't appear rational at all.

That summer was hard. Really hard. God kept me in Fort Collins where I witnessed the changes He brought through the Summitview Infusion. And He kept a premed brother-in-Christ by me to help me through this ordeal. He started to become a very good friend through this, and for that, I was very thankful. My grandpa died the end of the summer. It's all in my blog here.

Senior year I took Biochemistry. There were many times I was almost brought to my knees in praise of God during the lectures as His awesomeness in the smallest workings of life were revealed. God through His Word, Biochemistry, and again His work in my friends kept me believing in His faithfulness, His plan, His comfort. God who held every molecule in my body making them all work properly could hold me when I felt overwhelmed with grief.

This last year I worked at a hospital. I've lost 4 patients that I have gotten to know pretty well, each time I've shed tears. I've seen a lot of suffering but a lot of amazing recoveries. God's hand is hard at work at the hospital.

So back to the song by Sanctus Real. Why am I listening to it over and over again? Because it's a reminder that God has never left me alone. Even through these past three years, when others may have thought He had left me, it was then He was the closest. I am starting to believe that this lesson was the main spiritual lesson of my undergraduate career. It was taught by pain, by a lot of pain, pain where I wished God would stop my physical heart and end it, but He wanted me to know that He would hold my spiritual heart as I cried.

I wonder what my graduate school years will be like. I hope they will be good. Whatever happens, I know for sure, wether things are good or bad, God will always be at my side.