Crucified to Set us Free.

A necklace. After much hugging and embracing she pulled me aside and gave me a necklace. A beautiful necklace, with a coral stone. This was no ordinary gift. After two months of volunteering at the red cross. I came out of it with so much. Today was my last day. And it reminded me that just two months ago, I would have come and sat down and listened to this doctor's life and love story. That she would pour out her heart and her feelings, as tell me of her adventures with Doctors Without Borders in South Africa, Bolivia and by mistake in Ecuador. She would tell me that that mistake would have led her to her husband.
 This was a wonderful woman. She was so cute and so clueless sometimes, and I think that is why she needed Jessica, the other volunteer, and I to help her out.
We sorted through boxes and boxes of medicine; typed blood, did inventory and soon the three of us became friends.
My heart ached for this wonderful doctor, this pediatrician-who in more ways than one was still a kid at heart herself. We joked around when we finally got internet in the office, and we checked all her unread e-mails, most of which were forwards, that lead to one story or another about her life. God blessed me so much through this woman, through this opportunity. For two weeks, we saw kids from a Home. These were children that had been beaten, raped, or worse. And it was those very events that had made them cognitively impaired, and yet they kept a happy smile on their face. The worst was when I had to write out the HIV test order for five of them. But this doctor had such compassion, she poured her life into these kids. And when we found out that one of them needed "un TAC Cerebral" (CAT scan) , she immediately said that she would find a way to pay for it, so they wouldn't have to pay the high cost. So today, as we all said our goodbyes. I was surprised, and I shouldn't have been-that she would give me such a beautiful gift. They were the ones who were being kind to me by allowing me to work with them. I didn't deserve it.

And in many ways, it reminded me of God and His gift of grace to us. We did nothing to deserve it. He made us out of nothing, He gave us life. Gave us hope. Gave us never failing, never ending love. What did we do to deserve it? That's what is so beautiful about grace. I don't deserve an inch of this, but He still gives it to me-fully and lovingly.I could never say thank you enough. For everything. The wonders say His name, the skies shout out His beauty, the rain whispers His grace, and the storm makes everything new again.

"Every day, again I'll choose.

there is no one else for me, none but Jesus."

Isaiah 30:18-26

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the LORD is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.

For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, "Be gone!" And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous.In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the LORD binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.