"There is a well-known passage right in the beginning of the Bible (Genesis 1:27): 'God created man in his own image.' I believe this to be true, and I believe that if you accept this and you want to come to a more complete understanding of what God is, you must study the brain. There is nothing I know of that God has created that is more beautiful, that is more intricate, and that gives us more insight into what God is than the human brain.
If you want to understand an artist, you study his art. I believe that if you want to understand God, you must study Nature, because Nature is God's art. It's what God has created, and the better you understand Nature, the more insight you get into God.
For me, the anatomy and biochemistry of the human brain is God's greatest art. It is quite simply the most beautiful structure in the known universe. The idea that anyone might liken it to oatmeal or Jell-O or cottage cheese, or consider it ugly, gross, or repulsive, is inconveivable to me. Whenever I look at the pathways and intricacies of the human brain, I am looking at God's art. Every time I operate on the brain, it makes me more spiritual."

- Keith Black, MD


Fascinating book. And I have felt the same rush in the middle of surgery, looking into a living breathing body and being awestruck by the beauty and intricacy of every little artery and tissue. Such a testament to our creator.

Words Finding A Home

I constantly write in my mind. I'll change phrases, delete words, refine thoughts...all just in my mind as I go throughout my day. So I've written a million blogs, just not typed them out. But I'm at a point where I keep thinking the same thoughts over and over and over in my mind. And it feels like this blog I'm writing is never going to be at peace until the words find a permanent home. So it's time to type.

My boyfriend broke up with me two weeks ago.

Just typing those words out is still hard. And I know that people who didn't know my boyfriend and I together might just see that as just a regular happening in the world and think "get over it girl, it happens to all of us." People get together and break up every day. Not that earth-shattering in this world.

Well it was earth-shattering to me. I wasn't expecting it or wanting it. I had already bought an anniversary gift to give him in another week, marking our 3 years together. Yes, things hadn't gone easy over the last couple of months together, but I expected there to be times where it wasn't going to be easy. I still saw it as worth it. Worth it for all the love I felt for him. Worth it for all the values and passions we share. Worth it for the way God had brought us together in the beginning. Worth it for all the trust we had built between us and deep things we had shared with each other. I loved what we had.

Trust. That is one of the hardest parts I'm dealing with now. Broken trust. Every step in a relationship has to involve trust. I've felt like we have moved very slowly, carefully in our relationship, sharing things little by little. And each time I trusted him a little more. Growing and growing trust. It's like a rope. When I rock-climb, I have to trust the rope I'm on to hold me when I fall. But there's a difference in the size of rope and how much trust I feel. I could climb with a string attached to me, but I'm not going to take very many risks. But as the rope increases in size, I put more and more trust in it. I climb higher, throw myself at little holds, go for that seemingly unreachable cleft. Our relationship grew in trust, thicker and thicker...at least on my side. I shared things I never thought I would share. I think now how much easier it would have been if he had broken up with me sooner, before that trust grew so thick. Because as I was climbing higher and higher, putting myself out there because of the trust I felt, the rope was suddenly severed. And there's a lot further distance to fall now. I trusted him to stick with me through good and hard times. But he didn't.

The other hard part I'm dealing with is feeling like unconditional love must not be possible in this world. I trusted that when he began saying he loved me that he meant it and that meant unconditionally. And one of the main reasons he has said for breaking up with me is that he no longer loves me. I struggled with even believing that was true at first because I don't understand how a person can so suddenly stop loving another person. Going through some of my things the other day, I found my birthday card from him a month ago, expressing his deep love for me. And he told me often that he loved me, up till just a few weeks before breaking up. How does that change in just a couple weeks? Or was it not true? I don't know which is more painful -- that I suddenly became unlovable, or that he has been lying to me.

One thing I do know is that it is not so easy for me to stop loving. I wish desperately right now that I felt no love for him, because that would make it easier. But I can't help it. I was told once that I would finally understand God's unconditional love once I was in a relationship with that special person. And I felt like I was just starting to get a taste of it. We could disagree on something and it was freeing to be ok with it because I knew it didn't affect my love for him and I trusted that it didn't affect his love for me. I could mess up and trust that he would love me through it.

Oh and the JOY of being with someone you love so much! I miss that deeply now. Everything else could go wrong in a day, but I could always feel that extra hope in life because I had him with me. I counted on it. Just as I had that happiness deep inside that I could pull out when I really needed, I now have this awful feeling deep inside me instead. Sickening nausea in the pit of my stomach.

I do know that things will be ok. I will get through this, happiness will come again, and God will make something great happen because He is that capable of making goodness come from badness. But it will take time to get through the feelings of rejection, broken trust, and love that was conditional. And time to get over the deep love I still feel for him. And time to not feel so lonely in the evenings that I'm used to spending with him.

Right now I still have a God to put trust in, and that is keeping me afloat. I can look back over all that he has stuck through with me in the past and hold onto the knowledge that he keeps his promises to love no matter what and never leave. And I trust that this is going to grow me in positive ways, no matter how negative it feels right now. I don't want to grow bitter, I want to heal.


Whatever You're Doing
By Sanctus Real

It's time for healing time to move on
It's time to fix what's been broken too long
Time to make right what has been wrong
It's time to find my way to where I belong
There's a wave that's crashing over me
And all I can do is surrender

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something Heavenly

Time for a milestone
Time to begin again
Reevaluate who I really am
Am I doing everything to follow Your will
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills
So show me what it is You want from me
I give everything I surrender...
To...

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
but I'm giving in to something Heavenly
Something Heavenly

Time to face up
Clean this old house
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I've wanted to say for so many years
Time to release all my held back tears

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but I believe
You're up to something BIGGER than me
Larger than life something Heavenly

Whatever You're doing inside of me
It feels like chaos but now I can see
This is something bigger than me
Larger than life something Heavenly
Something Heavenly


Amen