WPDC Pulse

I am sure you heard several times that 2020 was theworst year ever and how people couldn’t wait for it to end! While we know there were several challenges in 2020, I believe the Lord is challenging us to evaluate our perspective. Yes, 2020 was very difficult, but where did you see the Lord? How did you see His provision, protection, peace and perseverance? How did He sustain you?

How’s your patience holding up? Mine is running a bit thin, and it’s hard to hear this pandemic might go on another year before it’s “over.” My heart goes out to those who live alone and rarely go out. And we lift up in prayer those on the frontlines working endlessly to save as many as they can. We must also include those who have no work and fearing the future, hoping it might improve soon.

Last week I came home from the office, still needing to chart, needing to be on a Zoom meeting and seeing SO many emails in my inbox from every hospital and medical organization I belong to, telling more about TODAY’s COVID-19 changes in what we should be doing and worrying about. I was overwhelmed!

I don’t know about you, but the only thing in all my conversations, whether it be at work, home or with friends and family, is about COVID-19. As I’m winging my way across country from San Francisco International Airport to Raleigh to visit my new grandson, who was born March 10, am I possibly bringing the virus with me?

My roses bring forth their last straggly bloom right around Thanksgiving, but already, in Northern California, by mid-January, they have what we call growing points, tiny buds on old stalks. Time to prune! My good friend Lana gave me a new purple (her favorite color) rose to plant in honor of my mom. It already has growing buds.

It reminds me of how I need to keep growing in my faith, to let the Holy Spirit show me what stands in the way of hearing His voice and letting His fruit be more and more evident in my life. As I think of my New Year Resolution ( I keep having the same one each year because of lack of progress—to arrive early to events, not five minutes late) or my words for the year (release and receive), it brings me to God’s Word and how Jesus handled a very busy schedule.

As we gather with families over Christmas and start out the New Year, I think of God the Father who “let His wrath go” that we deserve for our sin and sent His Son Jesus to take that wrath upon Himself. I think of the many people He met in his three years of ministry where He let things go, like with the Samaritan woman, the woman caught in adultery or the prostitute who washed His feet with her hair.

How are you doing on your bucket list? Do you even have one? Rafting the Grand Canyon wasn’t really on mine, but when my brother organized a group starting two years ago, I thought I should add it. Now after having survived Crystal and Lava Falls rapids, spending15 nights sleeping out under the stars, three nights with fine sand blowing on us in gale force winds, which seeped into everything, and squatting into the river to pee, one gets stretched into learning the lessons from the Canyon.

When you read this, I will most likely be rafting down and hiking the Grand Canyon with my two brothers, sister-in-law and a couple of friends. My brother organized this trip a year and a half ago, and now we’re really doing it. Pray we all make it out alive!

How was your summer? It’s hard to believe school is back in session. It seems like there was more road construction traffic during the summer on my way to work than school traffic now! We spent a lot of time in traffic driving to Lake Tahoe for long weekends to the Bavarian Chalet (not Swiss, mind you, she’s next door!) my parents built in the 1980s.