Indeed! I graduated college, officially have a piece of paper stating I have a special skill set, and have the freedom to go anywhere in the world - no pressure. ☺ But the real question everyone asks and that I have to answer is, “What are your plans now”? It is a valid question and one I, above all others, wish I knew the answer to. Of course, finding out about the Nashville Fellows Program and being accepted into the program has helped direct my path at least for the next nine months. However, when it draws to an end, the question still remains – what am I going to do now? It is extremely difficult at times to soak in the moment and not be concerned with what is coming up next. Schedules, friends, family, homework, phone calls, appointments, work, exercising, eating right, following up, and more are all pressures that fuel us to go, go, go. All. The. Time. Like most, I enjoy being productive in everything I do; so to remain in one place in order to rest is no easy task. Honestly, I have begun to schedule time alone with the Lord to ensure it takes place; that I am able to listen to His voice and soak in His presence.

Resting is not something that comes naturally, especially in today’s society. Nevertheless, the importance of reserving a Sabbath day is vital to one’s mental, physical, and most significantly, spiritual well-being. From personal experience, I have learned that when my priorities are first focused on finishing homework, going to gatherings, cleaning, running errands, or even spending time with others, it is impossible to balance it all. Everything ends up falling apart, and people are let down. Failing is not something I intend to do, but despite knowing that I cannot not accomplish it all in my own strength, I still try and fail. Thankfully, this is not the end of the story since we serve a God who is our strength when we are weak; He does not turn away or stop pursuing us. Why? Because Jesus Christ desires a relationship with us. We are His inheritance from the Father – what a truly beautiful thing! In turn, we can respond out of the love He has bestowed upon us and spend quality time with our Creator. The concept that we can live out of a resting place with God instead of living for the rest is fascinating to me. It is the abundance of the Lord Jesus that flows out of us when we spend time in Him – seeking, asking, soaking, loving.

At the beginning of this semester, each Fellow spent some time inquiring of the Lord to reveal a verse from the Bible that He will use in his or her individual life this year. I believe God gave me Psalms 46:9-11 which states: “He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the chariots with fire. Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress…Selah.” From this, I felt God explain to me that out of the chaos or busyness of this year, He wishes for me to give Him first priority; to be still and rest in Him. And Selah meaning to take time to ponder what He is saying, teaching, and where He is leading.

I am truly excited for this year and so thankful for all the astounding people I have met thus far and will continue to meet as the year progresses! My hope and prayer is that the Lord will use these words to encourage you as you walk out the path He has for you. Remember to take moments each day to breathe in God’s glorious presence and exhale His wonderful praise. Selah.

I must concede that I arrived in Nashville with apathy regarding how this year would affect my career path and, by association, my life. I entered the Nashville Fellows program having been accepted into medical school, seemingly coasting on confidence in the notion that the medical field would be my niche for the rest of my life. My preconception about the nine months that lay before me included expectations of learning about how I could better implement the Gospel of Christ into medicine and, more generally, grow deeper in understanding and affection for the God that I call Savior and Father. So far, I am seeing both of those things come to fruition, but I am also being taught another important lesson: sometimes my expectations do not perfectly align with the sovereign plan of God. In such a short time I have learned how this applies to relationships with others, visions for the future, and even my assumptions about who God is and what it means to be a member of the Church. Through this blog, I hope to use my limited abilities to magnify the goodness of our wholly sufficient Father by highlighting how He has and is continuing to sanctify me in the manners to which I have alluded.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law, and judge one another and God accordingly. It is not we who build. Christ builds the church.” God took no time in showing me that I had idolized my own idealized sense of what community should look like for me. I supposed that there would be little discrepancy between the friends I made in college and the friends I would make in Nashville. I was wrong. The people in the Fellows program are markedly different from my college friends. Furthermore, not only are many of these amazing people unlike me, but we share significantly dissimilar backgrounds. Despite these ostensible hindrances, we have an overarching, primary commonality in Christ Jesus our Lord. After being reluctantly and rapidly shown this preeminent fact by God, I have had the blessing of beginning to enter friendship with the other Fellows, despite our superficial differences. How beautiful it is when the Church, the body of Christ, strives to function and serve in harmony due to our shared devotion to Jesus Christ, regardless of any other preexisting conditions. God has been gracious to give me a taste of such desirable community as He has designed it. I pray to experience this more fully as the year progresses.

The second, and perhaps most drastic, way that God challenged my expectations was through examination of my personal vision for my life and career. Roughly a week into this Fellows program I experienced an existential crisis concerning my career path. I began to question my fervor for commitment to medical practice. I started to contemplate whether I would be more inclined to pursue a career in business or law. After prayer and further analysis of my own heart I was forced by God, through His Spirit, to address my idols of perceived success and wealth. I now feel that I can stand in confidence as I begin to pursue medicine, with a trust in God and understanding that if He opens doors in the realm of business or any other avenue, I intend to walk through them wholeheartedly, leaning on a faith that my Father provides and sustains.

Lastly, God has shown me more fully who He is, and what it means to serve as a small member of the much larger body of Christ, encompassing Christians around the world, despite denominational affiliation. It is by perceiving my sin not only through the lens of filth, although it is filthy, but further seeing it from a vantage point that reveals how inconceivably dissimilar I am to God that I have become exceedingly more penitent and reverent towards the God of the universe. The God who sent his Son, fully God and fully man, to die in my place, so that I may be deemed holy and without blemish, acceptable before the eyes of an infinitely righteous God. How beautiful is the name of Jesus? What a blessing to serve this Savior alongside brothers and sisters around the world. I pray that we fight for unity in the body of Christ despite the denomination (or non-denomination), so that the world may see more fully the beauty of Jesus Christ embodied by His Church.

In closing, I pray and hope you will pray with me, that God, in His infinite grace and mercy, would continue to rescue us from our own precarious expectations. May we abide in Him always, trusting that the plans He has for us are for His glory and our good.

Perhaps I should have inserted earlier the verses by which this blog was inspired, but alas, here we are. I hope still that this Word of God would permeate your heart and affect your soul as it has mine:

Proverbs 3:5-6

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

This season of life has been a season of stepping into unknowns. New city, new job, new friends, new church, and a new family to live with. Choosing to come to Nashville was a complete head-first dive into an unknown season for me. All I knew was that God had called me to be there. I had nothing familiar to cling to. I often run from these sort of situations, yet, I’ve already been able to see how much of a growing experience such seasons can be. When we fully dive into a season of unknowns, all we have left to trust is the Holy Spirit and honestly, praise God for the seasons when all we have left to cling to is Him.

As I prepared to come to Nashville, I kept hearing the Lord speaking to me that this season was going to be one of growth. On our opening retreat the Lord gave me a sweet reminder of what I had heard. On the first morning I woke up early to watch the sunrise, but came out onto the porch to pouring rain. I decided to make the most of it and listen to the rain as I sat on the porch and sipped my coffee. The Lord spoke a word to me as I sat and listened to the rain hitting the ground. He said “The rain comes and makes dead things new. It goes into the cracks of dry and depleted places and brings life. It fuels strength and growth for the season to come. This season is a season of rain for you, of growth and newness, but, growth can’t come unless a plant soaks up the rain given. Soak up the rain and press into a season of being poured into.”

I think we can often see seasons of growth as these exciting times when in all reality they’re hard too. True growth means allowing the cracks to be exposed so they can be filled; soaking up the truth and letting it sink in so growth can happen. I’m learning that it's okay to slow down and listen. To be Mary and sit at the feet of Jesus and choose what is better. To soak up the rain and press into the season of being poured into.

1 Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.

Psalm 1:1-3