Truth for today

Sometimes at times like this I wonder why we have to go through hard and frustrating things.
Recently I have been feeling challenged in many different ways and I keep finding myself questioning the Lord- "Why God? Why? This isn't what I had planned. This isn't what I wanted...etc, etc." God thankfully is extremely patient with me and lets me whine and complain but constantly reminds me "Anna, my plan is so much better. Stop stressing and just rest and trust in me." It is seriously a constant battle in my head. At least every 5 mins I have to remind myself of the Lord's truths.
I recently listened to a really stellar sermon by Tim Keller and he stated "The worst thing God can do for us is give us all the desires of our heart." Right now there are a lot of desires and dreams on my heart that are not being fulfilled but I believe that there is a reason for that. I know this is true because God has proved this to me in the past. When I think back on past times when there were things I REALLY wanted but didn't get I'm so thankful that I went through those times because those things I wanted were either 1) not good in the first place and God saved me from going down a bad road, or b) there was a lot of growth, learning and transformation that came from going through those times.
C.S. Lewis puts it best when he states "To say God can't let anything bad happen to us is to say that he doesn't love us."
I have recently been reflecting on how God is our Heavenly Father. We all know that fathers don't let their kids have everything they want. No wise father will give his kids everything they want because he knows better on what's good for them and what's not. Well it's the same with God. He doesn't let us have everyhting we want because he knows that it's not all good for us, in fact a lot of things are really dangerous for us. I firmly believe that God does not withhold good things from his children. His intentions are always right and always true.
Tim Keller states "The degree that you believe in God using suffering to define us is the degree of wisdom that you have."
I am not confident of much in my life right now. I don't know what North Carolina will bring. I don't know where I'll be living/working in 3 months for my last internship. I don't know where I'll live or work following graduation. I don't know when my heart will heal...etc, etc. But there is one thing I am confident of- God is using this suffering to shape me, mold me, and transform me into a more godly woman. And for that I am thankful because that is what I pray for every single day. As much as I don't want to go through these struggles, I more importantly don’t want to limit what God is using in order to change me. I am thankful that God is more interested in my holiness than in my immediate happiness. My last Tim Keller quote: "We can't say we want to be like Jesus and then resist the very instrument he chooses to fulfill that."

My wedding toast

I have ALWAYS wanted a sister. There's kinda a joke that's been going around my family for a while now and it's how I wanted Vince to be a girl SO BADLY during my entire childhood. At one point I actually hit him when he was an infant because I just really wanted him to play dolls with me and he wouldn't and that was so frustrating for me. But 19 yrs after Vince was born I now finally have a sister! I couldn't be more happy to have Emily join our family.

Now I'm going to be really honest here...to say that I've always felt excited for their wedding day would be a lie. I've loved Emily since the first time I've met her so it's never been a problem with her at all. More so it's been a problem with ME. My selfish pride has gotten in the way of welcoming my sister-in-law with the love and care that she deserves. I've realized a lot of things about myself through my bro getting married. First off, I've realized how much of a jealous person I am. I didn't want Miles to get married first. He's not the oldest and that's just not how it should happen. I should be the one leading the family and doing the big steps first. But what I've realized is that Miles was so ready to claim Emily as his bride because he has maturity beyond his years.  I will quote Vince's best man toast from the wedding because I couldn't agree more with his words "Miles, you’re my hero because you are humble. You lay down your life for the people around you just like Christ laid down His life for you." Miles loves Emily with such a sacrificial love. The way that he loves Emily is absolutely beautiful. He serves her and loves her so faithfully. He has done that since the day he met her and I know that he will do that until the day he dies. As Tim Keller says in his book King's Cross "All real, life-changing love is substituionary sacrifice...we know that anybody who has ever done anything that made a difference for us- a friend, a spouse- sacrificed in some way, stepped in and accepted some hardship so that we would not get hit with it ourselves. Therefore it makes sense that a God who is more loving than you and I, a God who comes into the world to deal with the ultimate evil would have to make a substitutionary sacrifice." I am fully confident that Miles is going to lay down his life for Emily everyday and love her just like Christ loves the church.

I'm so thankful to have such an awesome example of how a Godly man should pursue and love a Godly woman. I'm thankful to have Emily and Miles as a wonderful example of what a Christ centered relationship should look like. I am thankful they were the first ones of the family to head down this road because God knows I wouldn't do it with the amount of love and grace that they have displayed. I am so happy to FINALLY have a sister and I feel so blessed to have one that is so amazing. And I couldn't be more proud of my brother Miles for the man that he is and for the way that he loves.

People are crazy...

My past week in Chicago was really good! I got to go on some new Chicago adventures. I went to a really fancy Italian restaurant downtown and then went to the top floor of the Hancock building (96th floor). It's crazy going up to the top because the elevator is really fast and my ears popped the entire time. At the top there's this really fancy restaurant and cocktail bar and you can look out at all the city lights and it's really beautiful.

I've been wondering this past week why I haven't been as lonely as I expected and I think it's because I get to be around people all day at work and I have made friends with so many of my patients. Obviously all of them are temporary friendships but I still enjoy all of them very much now! Recently there was a 25 year old girl patient who I bonded with who is a dolphin/whale trainer at Shedd aquarium- how SWEET is that!

I've also been wondering how I'm surviving because I'm severely lacking in my hug count. My mom has told me from a young age that you need 8 hugs a day to keep your love tank full and I definitely don't get that here. But I've realized that because I am always touching patients- either soft tissue mobilization or other hands on approaches- I don't feel as deprived. I still know I' m lacking in my hugs since touch is one of my love languages and there's not many friends here that I am close enough to hug.

It's crazy when I think about how different my life is here in Chicago. My friends are different than friends I've ever had in the past- they're more artsy and they have really creative jobs/dreams for future jobs. It's been fun to not only work at the PT clinic with a wide variety of people but to also hangout with a variety of Chicago-ians (although most of them are from all over the country/world and have decided to call chicago home in the past 5 years). I'm almost positive that I have eaten out more in the 5 weeks I've been here than I did my whole past year in IC. It's difficult to avoid it when that's honestly all people do here- they eat and they drink. It's totally part of the Chicago culture. I'm trying to embrace and live the culture here while at the same time not trying to gain weight and spend ridiculous amounts of money.  I love all the fun food options- there’s literally every potential nationality of food and it’s all so good. My roommate and her friends go out to eat every Wed and my favorites so far have been Thai and costa rican!

Probably the thing I love most about the city is all the activities that are happening all around. My favorite part of my day is running/biking on Lake Michigan. There is always so much activity happening- sand vball, swimming, running, biking, roller blading, paddle boarding, sailing, yoga, etc. I really enjoy working out by the water and seeing the skyline because it's so pretty but I also love the people watching. There is a very diverse crowd that works out in this area and some of them wear crazy clothes. My favorite was a man who looked like he stepped straight out of a Richard Simmon's video because he was wearing a bright yellow tank with bright yellow checkered spandex. It's really obvious that I'm a PT because I always am analyzing people's walking and running gaits and I usually make predictions of who I will be seeing in the PT clinic within the next week!

Ok now it's time for my BEST patient story EVER:

Thursday I was doing a new eval on a patient who was just starting PT after a knee surgery that had been done 6 weeks ago. He was very fearful of moving his knee and our whole time together was just over the top ridiculous. First of all, I went to greet the patient and his wife and the wife started out by telling me that her and "Ronnie" (the stuffed animal frog that she pulled out of her purse) were going to come to PT with him. Then when I started treatment the patient was in pain as I was moving his knee so his wife placed "Ronnie" on the table with him in order to cheer him up. "Ronne" stayed there for the duration of the appointment until I had to use that part of the table so I kindly asked if I could move him but the patient's wife insisted that only she could touch him and move him. (You have to realize that this whole time I'm trying to not bust out in laughter because this man and his wife are both 50 years old and they both looked like they had walked straight out of the 1980's.) Finally my boss came to check in and asked what was up with the stuffed animal and the wife literally told a 10 min story about "Ronnie" and she proceeeded to pull out her phone and show how the stuffed animal was the background of her phone. WOW. I know I'll collect more and more crazy patient stories but as of now this is my best one!