You've Got to Be Kidding Me

This is just unbelievable. The stress of the past week is unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life, and I've been through some stuff. We have been studying like...I can't even think of an apt parallel. The galling thing is, after approximately 30hrs of studying for this one test, all of us feel still inadequately prepared. I think our minds have reached saturation point, and then have gone beyond that. I was sitting in the Great room today, after clinical, studying and trying so hard to stay awake, but being numbed my Pharmacological overload, and it came to me, God's Word of comfort. You know when it says, "There for the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross"? Well, I felt like the joy of being done for awhile, being free to rest and not drink enough caffeine to keep a whole school of children hyper for a week, being free to just relax and begin to assimilate all that I have learned, being free to read a book for fun without feeling guilty for not studying, to go out with friends, for the joy of all that, that makes this 'cross' (if I even dare compare it to the magnitude of the cross of the sufferings of Christ, and the joy that awaited Him, which I almost don't because the dif between that and test stress is greater than the difference between the expanse of all created things and an ant) slightly bearable. (Did you get through that sentence okay? my grammar and sentence structure is going to pot along with the rest of me) I am so tired, so burned out, so exhausted, so strung out, so saturated, so wiped, so (fill in any extreme adjective here) that I can't cope any more. The thing that really gets me is my mouth. When I get this stressed, the s-bomb comes out a lot more, and I don't like it. I want to live a consistent life, but I have been failing at that, and thank goodness for the Lord's grace to me, because I am so at the end of my rope that it is actually no longer in sight; so at the end of the line that I forgot there even was one, so done that I'm not even sure there was a beginning. And now not making any sense. Alright, to bed with me, for I have to get up super-early to put in a few more hours before the 8 o'clock test. Father, have mercy on us all...

A Starbucks IV

I am sitting on the couch in the Great Room of our dorm, studying with friends, and trying valiantly to maintain focus and concentration. I am tired. Dog tired. Double-dog tired. So tired that my tiredness is tired. After a million hours in the airport yesterday, I finally got back home @ 2am and after taking a shower to wash off the trip grimies, I fell into bed, having to wake up 3.5hrs later to go study before my final this morning. All in all, I've gotten about 10hrs of sleep the past three days, and I am drinking so much coffee and Diet Coke that I am pretty sure it has completely replaced all of my bodily fluids, and if you stuck a needle in me, some dry roast would come out. Honestly. Yesterday was a comedy in errors; whatever could go wrong did. But, I met a guy on the way back that gave me hope that there are still gentlemen in this world. (Forgive me any male friends reading this; you are all excluded from the 'no gentlemen left' clause, of course.) We were deliriously tired, having waited all day for the flight that almost never was, and finally got to NYC, only to wait in another long line for a taxi. Well, the limo drivers came over to offer all of us 'great deals' as they always do, and he was smart enough to turn it down, which I told him. Never a good idea to take a black cab unless you are feeling up to paying way more than you want to. So, we started talking, and I was soon impressed with his humility, his kindness, his humor. It was a welcome antidote to a crud-tastic day. We split a cab into the city and he insisted on paying the lion's share of the fare, which he most definitely did not need to do. So, in addition to meeting a really cool guy, I also got home for a lot cheaper, and with a lot better company, than I ever intended to. He's only in town for the week, so no numbers exchanged, but maybe I'll run into him again sometime...
Anyway, so I'm sitting here, studying, and our great room is next to a music room for the surgeons and physicians society. Well, we are all here trying to concentrate, and these guys come in and start moving drum sets which subsequently fall over and create a ruckus. Another guy comes in with some Bud Lites, and they start to play in the room over, the same few chords over and over and over and over. My friend looks at me from across the room and tells me to turn down my ITunes...hahaha Ashley, you stinker! Well, I should get back to studying; I'll update this blog with what I've been up to after this week of stinky mcstink finals...And the band played on...

Introspection of a Good, Long Length

"Do not be afraid, I am with you, " God says. How do I not be afraid, when I am faced with the reality of atrocities, the reality of all the evil that I see? Today's sermon answered that question, and after a week of stress and fatigue, I was ready to hear it. The passage was on Revelation 2:8-11, about Jesus comforting the church of Smyrna in their afflictions, and commending them on their holding fast to their convictions, in spite of all of the personal loss they may or were experiencing because of it. Our pastor made the point that the true condition of our hearts are revealed when we are tested and tried. That is when the truth of what really undergirds my life comes out. It is easy enough to be happy and thankful when all is well, but can I really praise God when things are going wrong and everything just sucks (from my perspective)? Can I really believe in His goodness when I see all of the crap that happens in life, and all of the junk people have to deal with every day? How do I speak of the love of Christ to people who have been abused, people who are living on the streets, people who are alone and isolated, people who have weathered such horrible things? If it weren't for one truth, it would all be silly platitudinous nonsense. The truth of what Christ did proves His love, no matter the circumstance, no matter the situation. I can trust Him and what He is doing because He voluntarily entered into this world, gave up everything that He had, all because He loved His people so much, and God so much, that He couldn't stand that the gulf called sin should continue to separate them. Bad things have happened in my life, as have they happened in everyone's lives. It would impossible to believe in a loving and just God, much less a god at all, if it weren't for the reality of His sacrifice, the awesomeness of the gift of His life in exchange for mine. Jesus takes my suffering personally; He willingly enters into it more deeply than anyone ever could, and then rescues me from it. Most often, the circumstances don't change. I'm still in the crud. But my heart changes and I can see that even if I can't see the big picture, God can, and He has a great purpose for each and every event that has occurred or will occur in my life. For many, many of the things that happened, someone couldn't pay me enough money to ever have to go through again; I am just thankful that I made it to the other side in one piece. But I can see now that I am who I am today because of those things, and God has somehow made what was intended for evil for my good. Amazing. He suffered in the garden of Gethsemane for me. He hung on the cross for me, experienced the wrath of God for me. My heart breaks and weeps when I think of His pain and anguish, and what love that shows. And my heart breaks when I hear His name maligned, even in my own head sometimes, because we don't truly realize Who He is. Truly a Man of sorrows, but also a Man of great joy. It is this joy that gets me through the week. It is this love that wraps me up tight and holds me close, even when I feel like I am so alone. It is this Jesus who holds out His hand to me and lifts me up when I have screwed up for the umpteenth time. Because of this, I can trust God in my present circumstances, even if they are hard and seemingly immovable, and I can trust Him for my future. Because I have such myopic vision, I can't see the big picture. But I know Someone Who can, and I take comfort in that.

From C.S. Lewis, "Mere Christianity":
"Someone once asked me, "Why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?" The better stuff a creature is made of -- the cleverer and stronger and freer it is -- then the better it will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. How did it go wrong? The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first -- wanting to be the center, wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of satan, that was the sin He taught the human race. What satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could "be like gods" -- could set up on their own as if they had created themselves -- be their own masters -- invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history -- money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery -- the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy. The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline; now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy apart from Him. God cannot give us a happiness and a peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. Jesus claimed to be God. God, in the language and paradigm of the Jews, meant the Being outside the world Who made it and was infinitely different from everything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips. One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so many times: He forgives sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offenses against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offenses. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history. Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is "humble and meek" and we believe Him, not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings. I am trying to prevent here anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Your must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."

I'm So Glad It's Done

Wow. What an intense, cruddy week. The tests were challenging; the studying was interminable, it seems like. After Pharmacology yesterday, I had to take a nap out of self-defense. I was so tired and worn out, my muscles were starting to spasm and hurt. It was unreal. So, a group of us went out last night to blow off some steam and ended up staying out til 5:30am. And then a new friend and I sat on our roof and watched the sun come up over the city. It was so much fun to just go out and have fun and hang out and dance, other than the very disgusting dancing that many guys in this city seemed to want to do with us. Thankfully, we were protected by two great guy friends who shooed the gross guys away and allowed us to have a good time minus the grossness. Praise God for gentlemen!
In class last week, I was reading the Times, trying to stay awake, and I came across some tidbits that just reaffirmed my suspicion that some people have professions that match their surnames, or perhaps because of their surnames? For instance, I found these nuggets:
From Observatory by Henry Fountain, about underwater volcanic activity, "'A map of the area created using sonar showed what appeared to be cratered volcanoes...' a research project done by Robert A. Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts". See it? Dr. Sohn works with sonar.
Also from Observatory, "Robert H. Hurt, an engineering professor at Brown University, set out to see what could be done to reduce the risk...of mercury in recycled compact fluorescent bulbs". Dr. Hurt researching how to not get hurt by mercury.
And also, "You never know, " Dr. James W. Head III said. He is the professor of geological sciences at Brown and one of the lead authors of an article in Science. Head talking about not knowing.
Excellent. For a collector of all things humorous and nonsensical, these articles tickled my funny bone. Perhaps I should have changed my surname to "Getbetter" or "Careforyou". I can hear it now, 'Paging Nurse Getbetter, Nurse Getbetter, please come to the OR. Dr. Bones needs your assistance.'

Darn It!

I am so ticked at myself. I just got back from studying for what seems like years, but was really just four hours after an 8 hr day of class, and decided to pull out my new, very cute top that I bought a few weeks ago, and haven't worn yet, to wear to class tomorrow. Well, I was looking around, thought I hung it up, looked in drawers, thought maybe I folded it up, looked everywhere, and couldn't find it. And then it hit me: I think I put it in a bag on the floor a week ago, and in one of my frenzied cleaning ordeals (which hit quite frequently) maybe I threw it out! It was made of a thin material, so if I was throwing away a big bag of random junk, it could have ended up in there. That ticks me off to no end. It wasn't expensive, but it wasn't cheap, either. I'm not going to buy a new one. I'll just have a sulk about it until I go to bed and then get over it. Darn it!
Speaking of funny shirts, I saw a guy today who was wearing a shirt that said, "Hoosier daddy" Haha. He was a young guy, so probs got it from Goodwill or something; I figure that it was made in Indiana? Anyway, it gave me a chuckle.
Also funny, while walking through part of Harlem today, I saw a sign for a realtor specializing in helping young professionals build equity. I remember it because the name was quite striking, and wouldn't necessarily be one I'd choose if I was appealing to professionals. The name of the realty was PHAT Cribs, Inc. I did a double-take. Seriously? Is that really what you wanted to name your company? Are you sure? Really? Ummm....okay.

Switch those last two captions--somehow they got messed up.

4th O'July

Fourth of July fun--we got rained on. I'm not sure where the boys were when we took this pic!




Me and the Brooklyn Bridge...it was a beautiful night.



Me and my buddy Starbs

What I don't know

I don't know what it is like to not have a home. I don't know what it is like to have AIDS and be hungry and sleeping on the street, and looked at as less than human for this. I don't know what it is like to feel useless and hopeless, seeing day turn into night and back into day again, and on, and on, and on, with no change. I live by a homeless shelter, a shelter for @ 300 men, many with mental problems. I walk by this probably three or four times a day, depending on where I am going. There are always a few guys loitering around outside of it; playing music, oogling the girls walking by, smoking. And it is always a toss up whether or not I look one in the eyes when I pass him. If I don't, and he says hi, I feel rude. If I do, then he'll definitely say hi and usually other things too. I've always felt perfectly safe; Columbia does a great job of having police around all of the time, so I am never left feeling vulnerable. But even the fact that I could potentially feel vulnerable and unsafe around these men disturbs me. Why? Why do I feel like this? What if they were a bunch of polished guys wearing business suits, smoking cigars, and talking about stocks? Same people, just looking differently. And I realized how much appearance makes a difference, and how quickly I can judge someone, simply by looking at him. Partially, this is a good thing, I think. One needs to be wise, and experience has shown that bad things can come of being too naive. On the other hand, this a bad thing. It is because I have pigeon-holed a whole group of men, whom I don't know personally, into a stereotypic category, and relate to them as such. Every time I go into Starbucks, there is one homeless man on the street asking someone to buy him a cup of coffee. I should buy him one each time, but I don't. There is another, with two lazy eyes, who always walks back and forth with his headphones on. This morning, when I passed him, I smiled at him and continued on. Later, when I left Starbs to go to the subway, he shouted from two blocks away, "Hey blondie, have a nice day!" I didn't even realize who it was at first. It made me think, you know, so many people walk by these men each day; us students who are so privileged to be here, getting this incredible education. How many of us stop to say hi, to show them dignity and respect, to treat them as human beings rather than invisible, as worthless? How incredibly hard it must be for them, especially as men, to not have a job, not really have anything to do or anywhere to go, to beg for their food, etc. and be at the mercy of the general populace? What unbelievable humiliation. Pride smashed to the ground. And what depression that must foster. Now, someone might say to me, "Stef, you are being too naive. It's all well and good to want to do something, but they got themselves into this position. Plus, if you give them money, they'll just use it to buy drugs. Jesus says to be as wise as serpents." Yes, valid argument, but Jesus also said to be as gentle as doves. Everything inside of me screams as I look around and see this crazy world with so many mixed up ideas, so many many injustices, and so much fear, hatred, depression, and hopelessness. If my two dollars can give a person hope that someone cares for them, someone sees them as a person, as a unique, beautiful, creation that belongs to God and who was created for a purpose, I don't care what he spends it on. I was that homeless person before Jesus saved me. I needed Someone to reach out a hand and pull me up because I couldn't do it. And I take His love and squander it, even now, even still, after all He's done. Who's the bigger fool? The homeless person who buys drugs that will make him happy for a little bit but only leave him emptier than before, or me, who knows what true love and acceptance and life is, and who doesn't extend that to others? Or who throws it back in God's face with my bad attitudes or selfishness or unforgiveness? Easy answer. But this isn't about me. It just hit me so firmly this morning, sitting in Starbs, drinking my green tea. There were two sparrows outside of the window, picking at someone's puke from the night before. Sparrows always always make me think of when Jesus said that He knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, and how much more precious are we than sparrows? He knows the names, the stories, the disappointments, the joys of each life here on earth. He knows the hungers and the sorrows of us all. I am crying in my heart when I write this; I wish that I could help them. I wish that those homeless men could know the love I've been blessed to know my entire life. I wish that they could know that their lives have purpose and worth, not dependent on what they do, but simply because they are them, they are alive, they are human.

Like TPN through an IV Tube, So Are The Days of My Life...

Clinicals are hysterical. I’m with the greatest group of people, and we get along awesomely. So many crazy things have happened already, where to begin?

We do everything in pairs this summer. We are on a colorectal and bariatric floor, but we actually see a little bit of everything, med/surg related. Fun stuff. Last week, my partner and I went in to give a young man a bed bath. As if that wasn’t challenge enough, he was on precautions, so we had to gown and glove up before going in, and couldn’t leave the room just to grab something if we forgot it. That would require another ten minute process of de-gowning and gloving, getting the thing, and re-gowning and gloving. So, we had to be prepared. I hadn’t done a bed bath on an adult in years; I was used to preemies. I’m not sure if my partner had ever done one. So we walk in the room, introduce ourselves, take his vitals, and ask if he wants a bath. Honestly, nothing can make you feel more stupid and incompetent than fumbling around while executing a simple task. Case in point, I was trying to put down one of the side rails on his bed; I tried everything I could think of, and he is sitting there, looking at me, most likely thinking, if this woman can’t get a bedrail down, I don’t think I want her helping me! My partner came around, pushed in the little catch that would release it, and down it went. I was like, “Riiiiiggggghhhhttt”. Uh-huh. I’ll just go ahead and figure out the dosage for your pain meds and anti-seizure meds now. And I bet you’re so glad that you have a nurse doing that who can’t figure out how to work a bedrail.

One of my other clinical mates was telling me about how she went in to take a manual blood pressure on a patient. As she was attempting to do this, a group of doctors and residents walk in and watch her. So of course, she gets super nervous (who wouldn’t?) and puts on the cuff the wrong way. And then inflates it, and tries to get her stethoscope off from around her neck and up to her ears, but it gets caught in her nametag, so she is standing there, fumbling around, nametag-and-stethoscope soup on her chest, with everyone watching her,and a backwards-placed cuff. Hilarious. On our first day a few weeks ago, she took what she thought was Purell and put it on her hands to disinfect as she was walking into a room, and it turned out to be soap. So she is standing there, trying to rub it in, and it just keeps getting frothier and stickier, not disappearing like Purell should. What the heck was going on? Then someone realized she had put soap on. The thing is, she is an incredibly smart person and will be an excellent nurse. But when we are being watched and under pressure to know what we are doing, we all make the stupidest asinine mistakes.

And today, our shoes started squeaking when we walked. Both she and I have identical Danskos, and they’ve been silent thus far. For whatever reason, though, today, they both decided to squeak, and be annoying about it. People could hear us coming probably even if we were walking in from Pennsylvania. Oh, the best part about our uniforms is the totally 80’s vibe they give off. Honestly. 100% polyester, tapered leg, elastic waist, all white shoes and formless scrub top are the ingredients for a totally hot nurse. And by totally hot I mean it literally. Some one could come to me and say, “Stef, how hot is it today?” And I would answer, “You mean in my pants or outside? Because outside it is 85. In my pants its easily 125.” They don’t breathe. And, the tapers at the ankles really make the look. Last week, we got some whistles while walking down the street after clinical to catch our train. Yes, boys, take a good look. You won’t see such stylish scrubs again, I’m sure. We’re the stuff the late 80’s were made of.

But I love it! I am collecting crazy stories about nursing school by the bucketful. And this is just the first summer.

Oh, one more thing. There are some very very good looking young doctors and a very cute murse (not a typo -- male nurse = murse) that we see when we are there. It is very difficult to restrain ourselves from asking them obvious questions just to talk to them. Today, I couldn’t resist. This guy looked like a more grown up, buffer version of Harry Potter with an amazing smile, wearing the white doctor’s coat, no wedding ring. (Yes, I did look. What can I say?) I did have a legitimate question about a slightly hypertensive systolic BP, but I guess I didn’t necessarily have to ask him. I could have asked someone else. But because I am in a program with mostly all women, and very much starved for straight male contact, he was a sitting duck. His helpful and friendly smile cinched it. I ambled over to him, oh so suavely, and said, in a low, throaty voice, “Well hey there Dr. Studly, could I ask you a quick question? What are you doing later? Care to get together and discuss vital signs?” And he took me in his arms and said, "Baby, you're the only vital sign I need! You make my temperature rise and my blood pressure prehypertensive!" And I say, "Dr. Studly, prehypertensive according to Cornell's standard or AMA's? Because AMA says anything above from 120/80 to 140/95 is prehypertensive but Cornell has a slightly different take..." No, just kidding! But I did give him a big smile. What really happened: I walked over to him and excused myself for interrupting him, but was wondering if he could tell me what would cause an abnormally high systolic BP, while the diastolic was still within normal range? Very matter-of-fact, very professional. Little did he know that I thought he was adorable, and would have sat there, talking to him about anything, even the different sizes of sterile gauze, for hours. He was very helpful and kind, and I walked away trying to think of other questions to ask him. I couldn’t think of any. Sigh. A day in the life of a student nurse.

Truth

It's 5:50am and I woke up with all these thoughts in my head that I had to get down before they got lost in the mishmash of the day. I am living in a culture now that is, as my dad puts it, as being out of the frying pan and into the fire. What I mean by that is, I am living in a very in-your-face relativist society. Not to say that I didn't encounter these attitudes in MN, or even in myself every day, but here it seems to just be very much at the fore. Ironically, though, instead of making me question my faith and what I believe, it has served to refine and strengthen it, and really hit home to me the importance of daily time in prayer and in the Word, and just being in God's presence. That is my center, that is my strength. On my own, I get caught up in the mentality and practices of the culture around me, but God is always there, calling to me to come back, and when I do, how sweet it is! His Word is truth, the ultimate Truth. People ask me, 'how do you know this? Isn't it just that you believe that it is truth? And if that works for you, great, but I don't want any part of that. Organized religion has hurt me, they are just a bunch of hypocrites, it's all a sham. I don't hurt anyone, I'm a good person.' Yes, all that has elements of truth to it. Organized religion doesn't save anyone from sin, from themselves, this is true. Jesus does. There are hypocrites in the church. One of them is writing this blog right now. But it's not my hypocrisy and failings that invalidate God's truth; nor would it be living a perfect life (if that were even possible!) that would verify it. Jesus is perfect, and He is what it is all about. The church is full of failures and sinful people. Yup. No argument there. But the church isn't about us. The church is about Jesus. We fail; He redeems our failures and puts them to good use. I don't know how He does this, but He does. The 'I'm a good person' one is a common theme too. I know because this is what I say to myself just after I have done something I know I shouldn't have and feel guilt about it. Like I am trying to justify myself. But to whom? God's laws have been written on our hearts; whether one knows Him or not, they are there. When we say, "I am a good person, I don't hurt anyone", that's not true. We do hurt others. Our selfishness and self-absorption hurts others. Our pride. Our vanity. Our self-seeking. And even if none of these things hurts others, it would hurt ourselves. Since we were all created in God's image, me hurting anyone, myself included, is a big deal. Okay, so the point of all of this. All of these things were floating around in my head, mixed up with left-over dream segments and things I need to know for my Physical Assessment test, but what I heard as the loudest voice was that the Word is truth. Everyone is looking for truth to build their lives on. Some build it on the 'truth' that if I have enough money, enough status, look good enough, I'll be happy and secure. If I don't rock the boat, leave others alone to do their thing, live and let live, I'll be happy and secure. Funnily, these things don't work. It seems like they do, for a time, but they don't. Money can go. Status can go. Looks can go. You can't please everyone. The only truth that stands is the unshakable Truth, the Word. Piper once said (really bad paraphrase following): "Truth without love is too harsh. Love without truth is too wishywashy and milquetoast. You need truth spoken with love."
Or, as Mary Poppins says, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down". Love is the soft pillow you put your head down on at night, and truth is the blanket that covers you. Put together, you get a good night's sleep! Okay, so apparently I am still thinking about sleeping. I think I said all I had in my head, and it is time to go get a bagel and start the day.

Thoughts from Piper

It's early, I'm tired. Read this in Piper's blog:

The most beautiful confessional statements of God’s providence are found in the Heidelberg Catechism:

What do you mean by the providence of God? (Question 27)

The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by his providence does still uphold all things? (Question 28)

That we may be patient in adversity; thankful in prosperity; and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, that nothing shall separate us from his love; since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.

Read, trust, worship, be radical.