life update

I haven't written in a while about life, so here goes (in bullet format):

- finished Physiology block - praise God! - now we are in "the best time of first year excluding pass/fail fall semester" according to MS2s, sounds promising
- El Paso mission trip - amazing experience, learned a lot of medicine, met cool brothers and sisters in Christ, encouraged by doctors and residents who live out their faith in their career
- helped lead worship for the first time (in El Paso) - very interesting experience, I love worship and sharing it with others, but I don't know if I like leading it
- also from the mission trip, I fell in love with family medicine - possible career option? definitely. Have I ruled out pediatrics? not yet, but primary care for sure :)
- praise God for affirming again his decision for me to pursue medicine through the trip - not of my will but of His - I will continue to follow his plan as he shapes my heart for this ministry in my life
- continually reminded of how little compassion I have for others, friends and strangers, and how prone I am to judge
- visited Houston for the weekend - I love seeing my family and sharing the simple moments in life with them, eating meals together, watching TV, receiving the latest news about friends and family from my mommy
- also the familiarity of hanging out with old friends is comforting and warm
- excited for my high school best friend who is now engaged to be married!
- looking forward to running my half marathon in mid-April, the end of MS1 year, seeing my relatives in China for two weeks over the summer, and working on the medical staff for 6 weeks at Camp Sweeney (children's diabetes camp outside of Dallas)
- considering and praying about applying for membership at my new church in Dallas so that I can serve in a greater capacity with youth
- just jumped on the bandwagon and read The Hunger Games (book 1 only) - not as great as I expected or everyone makes it out to be, but still a good and quick read
- started reading Miracles by C.S. Lewis (haha much different genre than the aforementioned) - it argues for the existence of miracles in life and encourages Christians to acknowledge they do exist especially considering the greatest miracle of all is the resurrection of Christ - seems fitting with Easter coming up

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

mind blown

"God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began."
- 2 Timothy 1:9

"Saving grace was given to us before the ages began.That is, it was given to us before there was any human sin to save us from. Therefore, grace was planned before human sin was there to need it. This means that God's plan to save us through grace was not a response to human decisions to sin. Saving grace was the plan that made sin necessary. God did not find sin in the world and then make a plan to remedy it. He had the plan before the ages, and that plan was for the glory of sin-conquering grace through the death of Jesus Christ...the ultimate aim of the eternal plan was that praise might be as intense as possible for the glory of God's grace And the apex of that glory is in the death of Jesus."
- John Piper, Spectacular Sins (emphasis mine)