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| Pray with a sincere heart.Yesterday was mother's day. Hope everyone show their appreciation to their moms one way or the other. My mom is in heaven so I can think about her. Nothing new here at work. Just screening patients and giving out the notorious anthrax vaccine. It will be busy tomorrow and the couple weeks packing up our equipment and supplies into the connex though. I'm studying for my final exam for my philosophy class. This will be multiple choice unlike the midterm which is only essays. The good part about multiple choice is that it is objective, so it doesn't require much thinking. But the bad part is that there is only one correct answer. If you are wrong, you are wrong. Chaplain preached on 1 Thessalonians 5: 9-22. His sermon was on prayer. He cited examples of different postures of praying in the bible: 1 Kings 8: 22, 2 Kings 20: 2, and 1 Timothy 2: 8. He preached how God looks at the sincerity of our hearts when we pray, not our posture. Where is our mind when we are praying? Do we really mean what we pray? Do we have faith in our prayers? If God doesn't answer our prayer the way we want, how do we react? Notes: -sincerity of heart when praying is what God looks at -rejoice while praying -gives thanks to everything because He has died for us -quench the spirit means when our walk with God and our life is not right, desiring the lustful things of this world, etc. -stay away from any presence of evil -ask the Lord to teach us how to pray -pray for others, not just for yourself | | |
| Give me the broken pieces.Well I've been deployed for over 6 months, just less than 9 more months to go and I will be done. Really I have less than 8 more months left cuz I will be going on leave which takes away about 24 days including traveling time. This past week was kinda slow as well and we're still giving out vaccines. I'm over half-way done w/ my philosophy class. Some of the political and business issues I don't quite understand cuz I'm not familiar with it. But as long as I pass the class it really doesn't matter. Yesterday chaplain preached on Jeremiah 18: 1-10 about the potter's house where he molds the clay. Many of us christians knows the analogy of that is th potter being God and the clay being us. The chaplain's main point is that after we have been broken into pieces so that we can be what He wants, we must give all those pieces to Him so He can put it back together. I'm starting to take notes now on the services cuz I want to take each sermon seriously and also it will be embedded in me better. Notes: -The potter crushes the clay because it is not what he or she wants. -Sin leads to destruction: Jeremiah 18:10 -You feel broken when God breaks you - plans, goals, dreams, life, money, etc. -Things that we accomplish by ourselves have no power. But if we let Jesus accomplish it, then there is power. -The potter's house is like a church: the potter puts fragments of clay together like God breaks us spiritually and put us back together. -Learn to let God put you back together in pieces to be what He wants you to be. -Give Him all the fragments of your life so He can put you back together. -Repent from your sins so God can work in you. | | |
| Trust me.This was a slow week, not too many patients. For the past couple days I have been giving anthrax, Hep A, typhoid vaccines. The anthrax vaccine makes your arm super sore for 2-3 days. So soldiers don't look forward to getting it. It's been in the 105 at high the past week and it's only going to get hotter. For some reason, it doesn't bother me that much. Maybe it's because I'm from California and I'm used to this type of heat. Or maybe my body recognizes this heat from the last time I was in Iraq. Been eating Baskin Robbins ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, mint chocolate-chip) and chocolate ice cream cones from the dining facility these days. I guess hot weather makes you wanna eat ice cream. I'm doing good in my online class. Got a perfect grade for both my essay and my midterm. Yesterday chaplain preached on trusting in God. It's a very common subject but I think it's very deep at the same time. During hard times, are we depending on God and allowing Him to help us? Or are we struggling it upon ourselves? I know I need to work on that a lot and I am beginning to especially that I am out here in Iraq. He gave us some awesome scriptures: God gives us strength: Isaiah 40: 28-31 Trust in Him!: Psalm 71: 1-7 No more tears, no more sadness, everything's gonna be all right in heaven!: Revelation 21: 1-7 & 22: 1-7 I took some notes during the sermon: -Trust God and cast your cares on Him -The promises & riches in heaven will be in your eternal life. -Good works don't amount to anything if you continue on sinning. -Trust in no men, trust in God. -Place people in your life in God's hands. | | |
| Hammer and nails.Well we got to the patrol base this past Wednesday. I stayed there for only three days and went back to my base again. They plan to switch me out with somebody else so I will be going to another patrol base in the future instead. When we got there we had to set up a tent to live in. We also built wooden floorboards for the tent and eventually built bunk beds w/ 2x4's, plywood, etc. They cut a hole in the tent and had an A/C set up. Now all they need is the power supply. I hope by now they have the A/C up and running. They got better portable toilets now where you take a crap into a bag and tie it up and throw it into a container. This past week there were several heavy sandstorms. The good part of that is it made the weather a lot cooler. The bad part is that the dust sucks and it started my allergies. I don't think I had allergies w/ dust before. Even in my last deployment it wasn't a big deal. I had itchy eyes, runny and stuffy nose, sneezing, etc. I took some Clear-Atadine which is a generic brand of Claritin which is the same thing. It definitely relieved my allergies. With all the moving and working, I forgot that this week church services have been moved up an hour earlier. So I only got like the last 20 minutes of the sermon. It was a salvation message and what I remember is that the last song was "I surrender all". The title in itself says it all. I think it will be a life journey for all of us to surrender everything to the Lord. But the important thing is that how serious do we take God has. And how much desire that we have for Him that we are willing to give up anything for Him. | | |
| The Lord IS my shepherd.It’s time for us to move to a patrol base. So we’ve been busy packing up and stuff. Our living condition is going to be lower. We will be peeing in tubes they made. Having to squat down on a toilet to take a crap. Then burning the crap when it gets full in the garbage bag. Living in tents and eating MREs for lunch. There is no laundry service out there so they plan to have somebody pick up our laundry and drop it off at our old base. But I am planning so hand-washing them myself so I don’t have to wait. It is not going to be pleasant but I think I will get used to it. It was 97 degrees here today. At least that’s what my weather desktop says. It didn’t feel that hot or maybe I’m used to it by now. Chaplain yesterday preached on Psalm 23. The famous “The Lord is my shepherd” passage. At first, he asked us how many of us were going ahead of him as he was reading the passage because the fact that we knew the passage before. The reason he asked us that was because we should read the passage slowly. He told us that “is” in “The Lord is my shepherd” means at this moment presently that He is guiding and protecting us like a shepherd. “I shall not want” means that the Lord has provided us with so much that we need that we don’t want anymore. He interpreted each verse after this one in the passage. The point that the chaplain was trying to make was that God will be with us through the thick and the thin. He will gives us rest and restore our souls and so we can complete His will. He will be with us when we are fighting the devil. He will correct us when we are wrong. At the same time He is a merciful God that forgives time after time. I think overall this passage describes the wonderful relationship between us and God. | | |
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