He has made all things beautiful...

"He has made all things beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity into the hearts of men, yet they cannot understand what God has done from beginning to end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

It's amazing to me that when I can actually step back and look at the year of 2009, I can see this verse playing out in so many different aspects of my life...

- Downs Fellowship - the journey from not having a project or an advisor to getting an amazing advisor, but not having an overseas site, to getting a site and a topic and the fellowship - followed by the craziness this fall of finding out at the last minute that I needed ethics certification from the Kenya government - and now the amazing reality that I'm leaving for Kenya in less than 2 months

- Didactic year - the stress and pace eventually paid off, not only in terms of being able to go on to clinical rotations, but also in the fact that I now have a learning style and strategy that I can use forever

- Family and Friends Suddenly Appearing in CT when they were the most needed - the continued strength from Liz and Chris, Andrew and Sarah miraculously living in Norwich for 3 months, Dad getting stuck in NYC for 2 days as he was flying to Ghana, a visit from Ted and Chelsey

And those are just a couple examples... and truthfully, those are the things that I need to remind myself of when I feel overwhelmed or when I long for things whose time has not yet come.

The other thing I noticed about the verse from Ecclesiastes today is the verb tense (nerdy, yes I know). But seriously, a very very cool thing. He HAS MADE all things beautiful... the action is already completed. In my journey and my struggle - I'm not waiting for things to be made beautiful... they already are. I just cannot understand what God has done, from beginning to end (and I have to contend with sin clouding my vision...) So my prayer is that I can wait patiently as I learn to understand and wait anxiously to see the beauty that God made. A dimension of that beauty comes from the journey of waiting...