Psalms 139:16

Can we ‘walk with Jesus’ and still go to hell? Yes!  That's harsh so let me explain: Judas Iscariot was a disciple of Jesus Christ. As a disciple, this man walked miles alongside Jesus, each and every day. He spent hours with Jesus, every day for three years.  He sat at the table and ate meals with Jesus.  He listened to Bible teachings, directly from the mouth of Jesus Christ.  Judas is a testament to the fact that we can ‘walk with Jesus’ and still be unsaved.  We can be ‘Christian’ by label, partake of Christian activities, hold impressive positions and titles (Judas was the treasurer of Jesus’s earthly ministry), hear solid Bible teaching and still be unchanged on the inside and be heading towards an eternity in hell, separated from God.  The tragic life of Judas has insights to offer us in correct discipleship with Jesus Christ. Here are three lessons we can put into practice in our walk with Christ: ·       ...

"Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has triumphed " - Revelation 5:5

I’m typing this, in my bed with sheets pulled over my face. It’s been a day. And I still have tasks looming over me that I still have to do but it has been a day, a long day. After four years of  residency, I had finally felt comfortable with the management my adult and pediatric patients in the clinic and on the floor. And today to be back at square one, with a knowledge base that is minimal, that’s hard. I am in the ICU with infants and children with complex cardiac diseases often needing urgent or emergent intervention to save their lives. And to not know.  If I’m being honest, it’s the toughest on my ego. Its bruised today, blue and black from all the hits of inadequacy and feelings of inferiority.  But it's humbling to be here again, face to face with what I lack. But as I stare my inadequacy in the face, I realize a few things. One, that this weakness is not always. Your first year is only the first year once.  First week only comes once. I will not always be...

“ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.  Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.  Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the tomb. ” Matthew 27: 57-61 Some two thousand years ago, on a Friday evening that felt as ordinary as today, a man by the name of Joseph took Jesus off the cross where He hung. In the dusk, as night fell around him, he cleaned a limp, bruised body. I imagine there were tears running down his face as he washed the bloodied remains of Jesus’s short life. The sting of disappointment, the catch of hurt at the back of his throat. He had placed his reputation, his wealth, his respect on the line; ...

I had a rough night. Few nights  actually. They really didn't tell me how rough residency is.  My skin is thicker that it once was, but there are days when the hurt of the day floods in, often in my car as I drive away from work.  And the tears spill out, and my heart is laid bear.. And there are days that I wish with all my heart that I was anywhere but here.  Here, where my failure is always at the forefront. Where I always feel worn out. Where I hurt and I hide it with a pasted smile. Where I feel so inadequate, not good enough for this task.. Here, where I feel so alone without my family and my closest friends.  And if I am truly being honest with you I started writing this a few weeks ago with a tremor in my hands, and tears streaming down my face. Because if you knew...If you knew only knew how much my heart and my mind and my body hurts .....I'm standing here in this place where I feel so small and so unable,, I'm standing, maybe similar to a place you to...

The hallway of the ICU floor is unfamiliar and cold. Shifts are stressful. Rounds are long. Painful. Attendings are stern. Chaos fills the ICU floor. When there isn't a massive group of people rounding, there are procedures and interventions underway on the ICU floor. With intubating bed 8. Coding bed 1. Placing lines in there. And pulling lines here. Doctors and nurses and pharmacist and Respiratory therapist armed with medicine try and try here in this ICU floor to make a dent in the enemy that is disease.  And sometimes, most often than not, we do not win the battle. We succumb to loss. We succumb to death. Bed 16. We will be withdrawing care tonight.  She's on pressors. On maximum vent settings. She's on continuous dialysis. She is swollen now, her hands and face edematous. She is hardly the woman she was a few weeks ago, few days ago... She reminds me of another ICU room I stood in 10 years ago. My grandmother's. Being just a child then and seeing her...