God cares

Have you ever felt like praying about what feels a little selfish? Or a little petty? And maybe you decided "I won't bother God", or "He won't pay attention anyway". I'm learning how He cares for every aspect of our life.

One of the things I'm learning to pray for is the weather. As I walk to the clinic in the mornings, and already feel the sweat rolling down my back, I often wonder how I'm going to make it through the morning in my small 2-room clinic (no fan because there's no electricity). I'm learning to give it to God, praying for help to handle the weather today. And many times I find myself walking back up the hill at noon, and as I leave the clinic and enter into the heat of the sun, I remember that I haven't given the weather a second thought all morning.

Today I had another prayer. My only other nurse is taking at least 4 days off to attend a seminar. Mondays are usually my busiest days, and as I walked down to the clinic, I prayed for strength to do this alone. I thought - He can make this a day when there'll be few patients (it does happen sometimes). But no, in the end there were 16 and for doing it alone, that's a lot for me. (sometimes I compare with what the doctors at home would see - 1 patient every 10 min from 9 -11:30=15 - and they know what they're doing). And again at the end of the day (2:30 instead of the usual 11:30-12:00) I remembered my morning prayer and realized I just wasn't as tired/exhausted as I often am, and I worked harder. I had peace all morning, despite some difficult patients. God answered my prayer for strength in a very clear way. I wasn't wilting by 11 o'clock. He was there, as I saw: a 7 day old baby with fever, a man with skin TB (not a pretty sight), an 11 yr old boy vomiting and with a fever of almost 105 F, a 7 year old girl, pale and anemic and malnourished, a 91 yr old woman with aches and pains and high blood pressure, a young man with a cut, a 2 yr old with fever, etc. And I even had energy to come home and clean my "medical section of a big storage room", which becomes amazingly dirty from dust and rain and mice droppings and falling concrete pieces, and you name it (haven't seen the big tarantula again, Steph!).

Remember, God cares about what's happening to you. Just ask Him!