Inside Out.

"Your will above all else, my purpose remains

The art of losing myself in bringing you praise....

My heart and soul, I give you control...

Let justice and mercy become my embrace

To love You from the inside out..."

My day in and day out work....my bread and butttaaa (ha!), is taking personal complaints(subjective information) combined with my objective physical exam findings, and coming up with a "assessment and plan" for my patients. (Note for future blogs: This makes a SOAP note: how I document all my work...Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) Over and over again. Taking an outside look to come up with an inside problem. Let's take abdominal pain, for instance. Whats in a belly? Small intestine, large intestine, man/woman parts, kidneys, lymph nodes, fat, space, blood vessels, muscles. You point to where it hurts, tell me all about its onset, what makes it better or worse, and thanks to education and experience we should be able to come up with just what the cause may be, or do a few tests to come up with a likely answer. The human body is quite amazing, channel Psalm 139. Or just think about just how amazing Lebron James really is...riiiiiight. God sure did make us complex, interesting creatures. The world of medicine is amazing, too. We're learning more and more every day.

The video above is a song that never fails to make my mind think. On more than one occasion, this song has been on the radio on my drive home after a long days work. And I can't help but think, how amazing our God is-you know working from the inside-out instead of the outside-in: He gives us so many experiences, friends, relationships...all to mold us on the inside into the people he wants us to be-to really, give HIM the glory. As joys and hurts come and go in life, its our response to our Creator that shapes our "assessment" and molds our attitude to our normal day in and day out-what others see on the outside. That attitude can present as a "sickness" or as "blessing!!".  The body has amazing ability to fight off disease, adapt to exercise, gain endurance and to change, etc....our spiritual growth is an "inside out" process too that should produce change. (Both types of change can be for the good or bad, too, I must note!)  And admittedly, some days are hard. Yet, God remains faithful!!

I'll tell you, a summer with mono has given me quite the opportunity to reflect on both these things. To go from crossing the finish line at my first half marathon to being unable to jog a mile in 2 weeks time...that's humbling. To have a summer to really examine my heart...that's humbling, too. 

So for my faithful blog followers....or well...Shannon, Kim, and Melissa,  :)  ...we'll I'm back!

And hoping to be blogging pre/during/post mission trip to Nepal, too!