January - April
This year is my final year of nursing and I can not wait for the year to finish, this last year seems to be the most challenging for me. I have moved into a little place on my own and have started to settle well into my role as a home maker and I am very excited for whatever the Lord has planned for me and will be thankful for wherever the Lord places me.This year has been such a change to the past 4 years, the Lord has provided for me through the passing of my brother in so many ways and I am eternally grateful to my brother and to my God for providing for me and my family in such a bitter sweet way."His ways are not our own and His thoughts are not our thoughts." In just a few days it will be precisely a year since my brothers death, I can not express the deep feelings of loss. Death is so final and there is nothing that prepares you for it. I have come to realize just how weak I am. I am so desperately in need of my Savior and for His mercies that are new every day.
This is somewhat different to my usual letters, it is one of the last ones that I will be sending out. I have 8 months left of this journey and I realize that the closer I reach to the end of it the more excited I am for what lies ahead. Nursing has taught me so much about my self, it has helped me to grow in self discipline, it has challenged me to trust God more with the little day to day things and showed me how often I fail and how desperately in need I am of His grace to walk in obedience despite how bleak and dark my circumstances may seem, it has taught me something of the sanctity of life and just how fragile we are as human beings.It has helped me to see the needs of others, it has taught me to show compassion on those who are weary and in need. This has also shown me my selfishness and my desire to preserve self, my self righteousness and my fear of man. Nursing has not been the goal, my qualification has not been the goal, no - rather it is who I have become, what God has done in me, what He is still continuing to do in me.
I think of Romans 5 now as I write, "..we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" This has often been such a comfort to me, through the years - a reminder that whatever is going on around me that no matter what I experience I can have a hope and as I go through those difficult times I can know that, that is what God is busy producing in me. As I reflect back on the years, I can see the faithfulness of God. What a wonderful thing to be mindful of the mercies of God, to realize just how undeserving one is of grace. What a privilege it is to be called a child of God!
