Unified worship

These past three weeks at Summitview, I notice that I start thinking about the other congregations I've been in and pray for them and just let myself be in unity with them esepcially if their services fall at around the same time as the one I'm in at the time.

Today I thought about three churches: Summitview, an E-Free church in Littleton, the chapel service at the hospital in Denver, and this small community church near my house. I attended the community church for three months, the E-Free church for the other 9 months that I was home, and the hospital chapel service on the Sundays when I had to work. The image was the same: the congregation singing a song sometimes with a band accompanying them. In the E-Free and the community church, the hymns were on power-point slides. The congregations varied in each location: The E-Free church was as crowded as Summitview and many people were white upper/middle class. The community church was a bit more diverse, and in the hospital chapel, most of the congregation wore scrubs and spanned the rainbow of skin-tones. Sometimes patients came to the service, so someone would come in by wheelchair or with a bandage or crutches.

In each service, several people stood with their hands raised during song or peayer, they were solemn when they got communion, and their faces lit up when they recognized each other Sunday after Sunday. In each service, several people were moved to tears during song.
At the hospital chapel, there was only one instance where we sang during the service. The Chaplain was going to read Abraham or Moses' parting blessing and one of the congregates remembered that it was turned into a hymn. When the chaplain couldn't find the reference, this congregate started singing the hymn. This particular person was at the chapel because his fiance was in the ICU on life-support due to an alcohol overdose. One of my co-workers was already emotionally wired because she didn't know whether a chronic condition that she had previously had resurfaces, and another co-worker had lost her aunt. I was a bit sad because one of my friends had recently been diagnosed with a mild form of a genetic disorder. As this congrete's voice rang out, as he was singing through his tears, everyone joined in. My two co-workers started crying as did I. Several other hospital staff congregates including the chaplain had tears in their eyes. We were singing to God in spite of everything, in spite of the pain and suffereing we saw throughout the hospital and in our own lives and families. We were singing because God was good through it all.

As I sang at Summitview, all those images flashed through my head from the churches in Denver. As we sang the song "Taste and See", I realized that I've fellowshiped with people in all these congregations as we sang cried and prayed to God. And every Sunday, though we are all separated distance wise, we still glorify His name together.

Confusion

"Be pleased O Lord to deliver me; O Lord make haste to help me! Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion Who seek to destroy my life" - Psalm 40: 13-14 NKJ translation

That verse struck me and made me think about today's academic community. In my Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) graduate school courses, we center mostly on discussion over the tons and tons and (did I mention tons) of readings we do before class. Our first classs introduced the idea of nature versus nurture and how advances in genetics have added to this debate. We of course, got into talking about ethics surrounding this new genetic technology including cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and abortion as a result of genetic testing. Being premed I wanted to put in my two-cents every few seconds, but I held my tounge to see what my other classmates said.

Confusion. Everyone had an idea, but no one believed any government, much less this present Administration should control and regulate this new technology. Everyone was entitled to their own opinions, yet no one knew what they would do if they were in that situation, "We can't judge. We can't judge." "How do I really know what's right or wrong?" "What is right and wrong?" "We each have to decide for ourselves." "How do you know what's right for you is right for me?" Everyone was speaking, but with no framework of some overarching social norms (morals) in which to speak in. I put in this about government regulation: "Well, when the government regulates something, it has some sort of value structure in mind. When it does its best to provide health insurance to the vulnerable, when it allows for free education to a point, these things reflect the values of the government and the society. Our society hasn't settled on a moral framework for this new technlology, but when it does, I believe the government will regulate it according to the societal norms." It wasn't advocating for a Christian point of view per se, but I was saying that there was something called right and wrong and there are overarching principles that govern society.

I am not confused because I trust in God and He is my guide. That doesn't make decision-making a snap, but I know His law and I know that He is sovereign, and the founders of this nation were heavily influenced by His law, if not even strong Christians.

It was amazing though, how I could mentally tease apart the debate while others in the class, instructor included, flounded and fought with their own, and the philosophy of reletavism's confusion. God has confused them, I believe, but I also believe that He will open their eyes and ears once they turn to Him.

Indescribable revisited

In my last blog, I mentioned the song Indescribable. Thinking about it more this Sunday, I realize that I cried during that song for several reasons nearly all of them having to do with how my work in the hospital changed the way I view God. Like I said in my last blog, images of God's broken creation in the form of sick/injured patients came to my mind, but my mind's eye also saw those patients who praised God through their illnesses and/or made tremdoous strides in their recovery. Indescribable joy and praise to God was the feeling I felt when I walked into a room and saw a patient sitting up in bed talking to me when the last time I saw her, she was heavily sedated with a tube in her throat to deliver oxygen rendering her unable to talk. I couldn't take my eyes off of her as she sat up smiling as I bustled around putting up the rails and preparing to move her by bed (she still wasn't strong enough to walk) to a procedure. I was so worried that she wouldn't be cognitively intact because she had several scars running down her scalp, but yet we were talking like two people getting aquainted on a bus or over coffee.

Indescribable was the same awe for God's restoration when I saw the mended face and eyes of a patient who for a few weeks was blinded by severe facial trauma.

Indescribable was my feeling of how God comforted me as I transported several patients I had known after they had passed. He was my calm as I carried out my work duties, and He was my shoulder when I did have that moment where I could just cry. And He was my joy when I realized that the patients may be with Him with no more pain and sufering.

Indescribable was my sense of how God truly did use me when a high-school aged volunteer told me how he had learned so much from me when he told me at my going-away potluck. This kid wanted to pursue the premed track in college, and I did everything I could to explain what he was seeing in patient care and how that would relate to his high school and college science classes. I also told him that being in this field was hard at times when patients suffered, but God would be your strength and theirs, and even in our job as transporters, we could do what we could to try and alleviate their pain. I never realized what an impact I had made until he told me. Knowing I had impacted one of the next generation of doctors was rather humbling and I thanked God for it.

My understanding of God, His blessings, and His character grew as my exprience in the medical field grew. Yet, God is still a mystery, and the medical field brought that out as well. When I struggled as to how to pray for patients wanting them to be healed but yet not wanting their suffering to go on, when I wondered how someone in the position of healing can be so demeaning to those lower on the 'medical totem-pole', when medicine sometimes seemed to put more money into a technilogical arms race and the latest archetecture for clinics while patients still crowded into the ER and the acute clinics because no one else would see them - These times were the times where God's hand seemed a mystery. Yet I never stopped praising Him or trusting Him with the medical field.

So, why did I cry when I heard the song Indescribable? Because I knew more of the goodness, the comfort, and how muc more God is a mystery now then I did before.

From the wards to the lecture halls

I return once more to CSU. From wandering the halls where antiseptic and other smells waft from different rooms to halls where people sit and wait for classes to begin. Going from helping a patient who is in a lot of pain move to helping a study buddy who is stressed out. Campus and the hospital seem like they are a world apart.

Working in the hospital has changed me in ways I think I might just be figuring out. Like today at church during worship, I reflected on the songs "Joyous Light" and "Indescribable" by Chris Tomlin. I had always liked the song Indescribable in undergraduate but now when I pondered the song, I pondered God's creation in the human body, but images of the human body sick and broken came to my mind. Tears flowed down my face because I knew now the pain of watching another human suffer illness and injury, but yet through that, I could see God's hand still. This same song that had me jumping around joyously because pictures of perfect molocules from my textbooks ran through my brain now had me in tears because I had seen the other side of my premed classes: the pain and suffering in the patients I saw. That aspect change me, yet my praise of God never changed. However, I feel apart from the world I knew because of so much happening. WIth work and with helping a family member who had lost her job.

That crisis plus work was my life for a good 10 months with me clinging to God through it all. I left my undergraduate year happy to be graduating, progressing in my walk with God and recovering from two recent losses. The year off the family crisis and being immersed in a clinical setting changed me and maybe even scarred me again. So, who am I now? Who is this graduate student here in the Library where I had sat as an undergraduate? I still access that joy I had my first 4 years of being Christian, but now I also understand what it means to cry out to God when I am in pain or when I see the pain of others and it makes me hurt inside too. God shaped me somehow through all this. Now with this new shape, I must somehow fit into the world of campus I had once walked before.

Going Ahead Looking Back

This week I start the daunting task of packing up all my stuff to take back up to CSU for graduate school. I haven't been through my college stuff in over a year. Since I'm studying Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS), my huge biology book will remain behind :( :( but since I'm taking genetics, my biochemistry book gets to return with me. I should also probably take my Evolution a Theory in Crisis book with me too now come to think off it...

So many books, so many tapes and CD's from church with a bunch of messages... all my stuff tells a story of who I was in college - a mix between HDFS and premed nerd and a Christian girl who had a crazy preoccupation with Creationism and Intellegent Design. I also found some journals and some drawings I did in the darker moments of undergrad - mainly when I lost my uncle and grandpa. I saw how God grew me. Looking at the messages I chose to have in my 'sermon library' much of them center around Godward growth but also God's hand and purpose through pain and suffering and about what we would find at the end of our earthly walk with Him. I also found a message with a note on it to a good premed friend saying that "There's a premed analogy in the middle of this message which is cool!!!" , so I'm curious as to what that is now. :)

I also have to pack new stuff - kitchen stuff since the Lory Apartments have their own kitchen (yay!) So, I'm taking with me some of my 'old life' and I have to start building this new life in graduate school.

Whenever we transition, parts of the old life integrate with parts of the new. We all know this already, but it's interesting coming back to CSU because God grew me a lot during undergrad and especially with this year off working at the hospital. How will He use the lessons I learned as a premed and as a patient transporter to continue to build me as a HDFS graduate student? I have no idea as I am not God! However, looking back and seeing how He has changed me and how amazing that has been, I'm looking forward to this next chapter in my life and how it will reveal His glory.

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.

Medical Small Group

Last Sunday I worked, so I went to church at the chapel there. I felt, as I've felt many times before, this connectedness with them as I have not felt since leaving the Small Group I was in at CSU. After the short service, my co-worker and I chatted with another member of this small 'congregation' as we headed back to work. About 10 employees are regular attenders. Most are custodial staff because they can be free of their duties for 15 - 20 minutes while the nurses and people higher up on the patient-care ladder can't.

I wondered why I felt so much closer to this small band of people than I did to the people in the large evangelical church I attend on my weekends off. Then it came to me: Fellowship. Fellowship daily on the job, fellowship when we talk about a patient together, fellowship when we talk about our own lives among each other. We are connected in all levels: as co-workers, as caregivers to our patients, and sharing our lives with each other.

This is exactly what the Small Groups at CSU strive for: unity in service, unity in being open to each other, and unity in living. That is how the apostles lived in the book of Acts and what Paul asks the churches to stive for in his epistles. I am thankful to God for our Medical Small Group in the hospital because we feel this strong unity. With the Great Physician overseeing the hospital, we can gain strength from Him and trust Him with our day to day tasks and the patients He entrusts to us with their care.