Learning My Trade

I feel like this semester is the first semester at Clemson that is chock-full of applicable classes to my career. I am learning all sorts of fun stuff like how to take blood and check for cholesterol levels and take all the various vital signs. By the end of the semester I will be certified in First aid, Basic Life Support, and as a Cholestech operator! I am thrilled. Today in Anatomy we dissected cats--we are doing endocrine right now which means we got to dive in there and dig around under intestines to find adrenal glands and dig under the lungs and above the heart to find the thymus, etc.! I think I will really love surgery! I love getting my hands into that cavity and palpating to find the tiny glands--it's just thrilling. We're so fearfully and wonderfully made and this semester I am being reminded of that daily--it's intense but I love learning with the thought that one day my knowledge of this material will affect someone else's life.

Broken.

The more I consider marriage the scarier it becomes. It scares the heck out of me to commit to deal with the effects of another person's sin. I hate my own sin and I hate what it does to my life, and I don't want to see its effects on someone else's life. But then, it has already affected Jesus and He loved me enough to take it on completely, something no man can ever do for me.
Marriage is a covenant to bear each other's burdens, as a single person I would be/am excused from that front row seat to scariness that is dealing with a spouse's sins and burdens. . . making it really tempting to stay isolated. But there is so much beauty in that sharing, it's what Christ did for us (on a much smaller level), and it means that we get to do that for another person--to lighten the load of one we love the most. How beautiful!
As with most of my walk with Christ, the further I delve into the marriage covenant the more scary it becomes, but the more beautiful. Sadly, sin and Satan have made it a mess, but Jesus has redeemed it! It's a beautiful, joyful mess!! I pray that one day I am called to bear a beloved's burdens and that when the day comes I will approach my Beloved and we will enter into a covenant together at the altar of our Savior, so that through Him we can die to our selves and get a small taste of the vast love He has for us--His church and His bride.