I think I am slowly figuring out where my biggest difficulty lies with everything recently. In that I mean death, suffering, illness…it is just so painful sometimes. I don’t know if “pain” is the correct word as I am not in physical pain per se (my tummy would disagree) but my heart breaks a little each time I have to tell someone bad news or I see someone suffering so terribly. For example, there is nothing worse than seeing someone gasping for each breath or holding a crying patient that goes in week after week after week for more chemotherapy just trying to save their life and they are so sick that they cannot even function at a basic level and they are just so sad and scared and the horrible part is knowing that there is literally nothing that I can do to fix it for them. NOTHING. But pray. And, I do. I pray with my patients in the hospital often. Did you know that when we give chemo we basically bring the patient as close to death as possible and then try to bring them back~that is essentially how it works. The only way it can work to rid the body of the cancer. How awful.

With that said I am sorry to say that I think where I am struggling with all of this IS with my faith. Like I said I pray, man do I pray with these patients and do they ever appreciate it. I think it helps them, but I don’t know…I guess I am not doing the best spiritually and if I did better maybe I would be coping better with all of these things? While some may think it strange, blogging about this also helps. It is like journaling to me.

I have thought about whether or not I am in the right place, the right career right now. But since I cannot imagine changing to a different kind of medicine I think I must be doing what God wants for me to do. And like I said previously, I so love my patients.

I wasn’t going to post it. I was going to keep it private but I have a tendency to lose emails and I think I am going to need it to refer back to again and again and that is the comment from our good friend Jason to my previous post. Telling me that he believes I am annointed  by God to do what I do~this is my calling. And, he reminded me that Jesus is my strength. That is where I am weak right now. It has slowly happened over the past two or three years…one of those things that creeps up on you like gray hair or wrinkles.

So. What now? Well we have a trip that we are both very much looking forward to. We will be flying to Mississippi on May 14th to see Adam’s Mom graduate from nursing school. I am sure you all know by now that Adam’s Dad is a preacher. They don’t know it yet, but I think I need him. I need him to pray over me, he just has it, you know. That touch of the spirit and I need that. So, as Adam’s mom reads my blog occasionally I guess this is their heads up…ha ha!

Reading. Gosh, I love to read. I know I need to read the bible more but I am not good at it. I have a learner’s bible to at least help but I need to be better. But if anyone knows of any good books about grief or anything that you think would help I am open. A friend just gave me The Shack by Paul Young and I am well into it already.  

I sure want to be stronger by this fall when I hope the babe-making season starts (oops, did I type that?)! =0) 

A good friend posted this on her site about 18 months ago and every so often I go back to that post just to listen to this song. In fact, I have probably hit replay and listened to the song ten times while typing this blog. We can all use a little Mercy.