Monday, July 17, 2006

Excerpt from my journal

From yesterday: "When things happen, when I feel like something was my fault or I've messed up, I tend to beat myself up over it forever. Rehashing the incident over and over in my head trying to think how I could have (should have) prevented it, wishing I could go back in time and redo things. Then I try to convince myself that it wasn't really my fault, that people don't really think too badly of me for it. But then I realized on my way over [to Coffee Bean], but what if it was my fault, so what? That's what Jesus died on the cross for! No matter how careful I am, no matter how hard I try, I will always make mistakes occasionally, I will always mess up every so often, things will always be my fault once in a while. And I have to be okay with that. Because I am human, I am not, cannot be perfect. As a doctor I will end up making mistakes. With the autistic kids I do occasionally make mistakes. With friends I do sometimes say the wrong things. I don't always have the right answers or do things correctly in the biochem lab (i.e. Forgetting to run an ACN blank on the GC when I was done with samples Wed. and then worrying about Teleka being upset Thurs.). I overdrew my bank account this week. And, most recently, Noah bit Nolan in the nursery this morning, right in front of Nolan's mom Amber and Mary Ritter! And I was the most responsible, "in charge" person there...So of course I felt terrible and have been beating myself up and thinking they must think poorly of me ever since. But I can't just continually beat myself up for all these things. I am human, part of a fallen creation. I am not perfect. I cannot be perfect. But that's what Jesus died on the cross for! And even if I don't have a clean slate with man, the completely amazing thing is I can have a completely clean slate with Christ! He doesn't hold things against me! He forgives me and washes me white as snow. Which is just so awesome..."

2 comments:

Wendy said...

Great post. Thanks for stopping by my site and for the kind words.

Rachelle said...

Beautiful post. I guess we all could write exactly the same thing! It's hard when we see our "fallenness" right in front of our faces in the form of mistakes, blunders, bad decisions. But that is what Jesus came for, right? Thank God for his wonderful grace and mercy. If it weren't for our mistakes, we'd never be able to appreciate that.

I will enjoy your med school travails... my best friend from college went on to med school so I've traveled this journey "vicariously" before. It is a long one, of course, but one full of rewards! As a Christian I'm sure that God has a special plan in mind for you. I wish you the best and I'll be checking back to your blog!