Friday, May 4, 2012
It's here! It's here! the end is finally here! After a long year and a very, very long semester, I sit here writing this only eight days away from walking across the stage. Being so close to the end leaves a strange mixture of feelings in you between excitement and anxiousness to be finished, exhaustion from all the work done and still left to be completed, and sadness in reminiscing good memories and saying goodbye to wonderful friends. I'm not gonna lie, though, right now I'm feeling a lot more exhaustion and readiness to finish than I am anything else. Still, it is hard not to get sentimental this time of the year, even as I am dying to be done! One thing that I like to do every year, as I'm sure others do, too, is reflect back on what God has done to change me and grow me from how I entered the school year. As I've wrapped up my classes and most of my final exams this past week, I've definitely been thinking a lot about these past months, and I have a little bit of a graphic analogy that I want to make if I could to describe what this year has been like...
I went to the doctor this past week for a toe infection. (I've considered not writing this out of embarrassment, but what shame do I have? None.) If you're eating, or you squirm at yucky things, this is your warning not to continue reading this post. Basically, I had an ingrown nail that was irritating the skin around it. Over the course of three days, my toe had become very red and tender and even began bleeding. (Maybe these are things I shouldn't share in public.) So, after I called my mother, I went to the doctor to see what they could do about my toe. After closely examining my foot, the doctor told me he was going to have to cut out the part of my nail that was causing the infection. It took the doctor awhile to go gather his supplies and to visit other patients, so I used my time alone on the paper-covered chair to consider this nearly-ended academic year. As I did, I came to the conclusion that God has been my doctor this year. I've said in previous posts that this has been a difficult year, and it has, but I think that I have finally realized that this year has been difficult not because of things that were going on around me, but things that were going on inside of me. I had an infection caused by some things that were not supposed to be in my life, and they were causing me a lot of pain. This year has been a long visit at the doctor's office, and the diagnosis is that I am not well. There is some fixing that needs to take place in my life.
My mom said once, "Surgery doesn't feel good at the time." I remember hearing her say this and thinking how profound that statement was, and this year I have lived it out. When the doctor came back, he had a syringe in his hand filled with liquid that would numb my toe while he used not one, but two pairs of scissors to dig out the irritant from my bleeding foot. When he was done, my toe looked awful. It was at least two times its normal size, and what wasn't covered and smeared in blood was stained brown by the iodine that he used to clean my toe before injecting it. It wasn't a pretty sight, and as I limped out of the office (my toes now being numb and swollen), I got more than a couple of odd stares. I laughed to think how pathetic I looked limping around not because I had torn a ligament or fractured a bone or anything that could remotely be deemed a worthy injury. No, I just had a silly little toe infection caused by a tiny, tiny piece of nail that was pushing through where it was not supposed to go.
Perhaps I'm being a little over dramatic about my whole visit to the doctors, and perhaps I'm just digging for something to say since I haven't been keeping up with my writing quite like I should. Ha! I imagine myself reading this post in a year or so and being completely embarrassed by my own foolishness, but at least I will have grown enough to recognize it from this point! I guess my point is that this year, I have been made uncomfortable and irritated, bitter and angry, tired and worn-out, broken and weary... and I didn't understand what was going on. I felt different. I felt like not myself, like there was something wrong with me. And it took crawling on my hands and knees before God to realize that there were some things that I needed to get rid of. Some things that I needed Him to remove.
And this is how I would sum up my year. It has been nothing that I expected it to be, and there have been some wonderful, wonderful moments that I have had the privilege to be a part of. Yet there is also a present recognition that this year was probably not all that it was supposed to be because I was not willing to let God cut out the irritants in my life until now.
So, here I am, God. Those things which You see that are not holy or honoring to Your name, remove them from my person. I am scared and I know that this process will be uncomfortable and painful. But there is nothing I can do on my own to get well again. I need You. I trust in Your healing. Thank You, Lord, for concerning Yourself with me and for bringing to my attention things that I have brought into my life that should not be there. Your righteousness and your grace astound me. You are an awe-inspiring God, and I love that I get to have an intimate relationship with You.
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." -Luke 5:32
I went to the doctor this past week for a toe infection. (I've considered not writing this out of embarrassment, but what shame do I have? None.) If you're eating, or you squirm at yucky things, this is your warning not to continue reading this post. Basically, I had an ingrown nail that was irritating the skin around it. Over the course of three days, my toe had become very red and tender and even began bleeding. (Maybe these are things I shouldn't share in public.) So, after I called my mother, I went to the doctor to see what they could do about my toe. After closely examining my foot, the doctor told me he was going to have to cut out the part of my nail that was causing the infection. It took the doctor awhile to go gather his supplies and to visit other patients, so I used my time alone on the paper-covered chair to consider this nearly-ended academic year. As I did, I came to the conclusion that God has been my doctor this year. I've said in previous posts that this has been a difficult year, and it has, but I think that I have finally realized that this year has been difficult not because of things that were going on around me, but things that were going on inside of me. I had an infection caused by some things that were not supposed to be in my life, and they were causing me a lot of pain. This year has been a long visit at the doctor's office, and the diagnosis is that I am not well. There is some fixing that needs to take place in my life.
My mom said once, "Surgery doesn't feel good at the time." I remember hearing her say this and thinking how profound that statement was, and this year I have lived it out. When the doctor came back, he had a syringe in his hand filled with liquid that would numb my toe while he used not one, but two pairs of scissors to dig out the irritant from my bleeding foot. When he was done, my toe looked awful. It was at least two times its normal size, and what wasn't covered and smeared in blood was stained brown by the iodine that he used to clean my toe before injecting it. It wasn't a pretty sight, and as I limped out of the office (my toes now being numb and swollen), I got more than a couple of odd stares. I laughed to think how pathetic I looked limping around not because I had torn a ligament or fractured a bone or anything that could remotely be deemed a worthy injury. No, I just had a silly little toe infection caused by a tiny, tiny piece of nail that was pushing through where it was not supposed to go.
Perhaps I'm being a little over dramatic about my whole visit to the doctors, and perhaps I'm just digging for something to say since I haven't been keeping up with my writing quite like I should. Ha! I imagine myself reading this post in a year or so and being completely embarrassed by my own foolishness, but at least I will have grown enough to recognize it from this point! I guess my point is that this year, I have been made uncomfortable and irritated, bitter and angry, tired and worn-out, broken and weary... and I didn't understand what was going on. I felt different. I felt like not myself, like there was something wrong with me. And it took crawling on my hands and knees before God to realize that there were some things that I needed to get rid of. Some things that I needed Him to remove.
And this is how I would sum up my year. It has been nothing that I expected it to be, and there have been some wonderful, wonderful moments that I have had the privilege to be a part of. Yet there is also a present recognition that this year was probably not all that it was supposed to be because I was not willing to let God cut out the irritants in my life until now.
So, here I am, God. Those things which You see that are not holy or honoring to Your name, remove them from my person. I am scared and I know that this process will be uncomfortable and painful. But there is nothing I can do on my own to get well again. I need You. I trust in Your healing. Thank You, Lord, for concerning Yourself with me and for bringing to my attention things that I have brought into my life that should not be there. Your righteousness and your grace astound me. You are an awe-inspiring God, and I love that I get to have an intimate relationship with You.
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." -Luke 5:32
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