watch your step, this is holy ground fool.

This is a weekly journal entry that I wrote for clinical last week. It was a gift so I thought I'd share it:

"Today’s clinical experience was sacred. My patient was a 21 year old male with leukemia. For his particular type of leukemia, the 5 year survival rate is 80% in children and 40% in adults. I’m not educated enough on the disease process to know which percentage is closer to his age group, but I don’t really think it matters. Today I got to speak to the client’s mother about her struggle with her son’s diagnosis. The furthest thing from my lips were statistics about mortality rate. After all the 20 and 60% of people who do not make it past five years probably have mothers just like her.
It is always an honor to serve and minister to people. One who finds themselves in a place where they can give to others should walk through service with humility and respect, knowing that it is by grace that she is able to give and that she is just as reliant on God and others for her needs. There have been a few acts of service that have truly blessed me so much so that I felt like I was in a sacred moment. Hearing the mother’s enthusiastic acceptance when I asked her if I could pray for her son, seeing the tears in her eyes and feeling the strength of her hands as we prayed for healing and comfort made me want to remove my shoes, because I was on holy ground (of course that’s not exactly following universal precautions so I refrained).
I pray that I will be able to experience more of these moments. I’m grateful to God that I can be there with people in these times of their lives that are so full of fear and desperation. So often clinical is all about the day, the 8 or so hours that we are in the hospital, but these are people’s lives. There's so much of something powerful in the hospital, but its so easy to ignore especially as an overwhelmed nursing student."

Recently I've been sensing the notion that I'm not reverent enough in ministry. In the same way I fear God, I feel like there is a need to fear the people I minister to (just as there is a need to love others like God). Maybe its not so much the people I should fear, but the work of ministry. People deserve respect for sure, but people are relatable in a way that God is not, and I think that separation is part of what makes God worth fearing. But ministry is a gift. God by grace invites us to love people like God does does. What greater honor is there? So I guess my point is that we should be careful in ministry. We should aknowledge it as a gift and respect the work that is done in ministry as holy and sacred. It's not a means to self-fulfillment, or a time we graciously give to God (as if). It is a noble duty of a humble servant; a gift for God's children.

the ocsars of life: why i hate psych 101

If life is a journey, if life is my personal journey, if life is my story then its about me. I can't seem to reconcile this "personal journey" talk with a the life of a Christian. See, if life is a journey then all that matters is that everywhere I go, there I am; no matter what happens I am the common denominator in everything I know. I might want to be independent and separate enough to reflect on my journey if I thought that sort of distance would bring fulfillment because it would lead me to truth. However, I feel this tension that the more I pursue things that bring me satisfaction, the more I see myself as the main character of my story and the less I see others as having any higher role than supporting actors. But really, people are more than supporting actors, and I am less than a star.

I don't think I can see myself as the hero and do Christianity. It seems to me that living as a holy person means viewing others as the heros and the main characters and taking the supporting role. In that case there is no use for self reflection beyond the purpose of better supporting others and God. Anything else is indulgent and self-glorifying; upstaging. I imagine it takes very different characteristics to win an oscar for best supporting actress than it does for best actress.

Maybe though, the characters aren't made to illustrate other characters, but rather to tell a greater story. So what is the story? Is it character development? is it redemption? is it grace?

Well I don't know what the story is, but its enough for me to know that its not my story.