The Hand in My Environment

After a long morning at school today – 3 classes back-to-back! – I arrived back from my rainy trek at the front door of my house, starving. I was also in a serious rush because I had a 3-hour lab starting in half an hour, and that didn’t include eating-time and walking-back-to-school time!

Unfortunately, I never did make it past my front door.

You see, I left my keys at home this morning.

Yes, it was one of those days.  Sleep-deprived, stressed from school readings, pending assignments and midterms – and then no lunch.  You’ve got to be kidding me.

But guess what I had received in my inbox?

This is today’s portion from my free eManna subscription, which never  fails to send me the Word of God daily via eMail:

God’s Hand in Our Environment

Rom. 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good

to those who love God, to those who are called according to

His purpose.

Luke 12: 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two assaria? And

not one of them is forgotten before God.  (7)  But even the

hairs of your head have all been numbered. Do not be afraid;

you are of more value than many sparrows.

If God takes care of a seemingly worthless creature such as a

sparrow, how much more will He take care of His children! If

God takes care of something as minute as a hair, how much

more will He take care of other things! Once we believe in

the Lord, we need to learn to know His will through the

environment. Nothing that happens to us is a coincidence.

Everything is measured by the Lord. Our career, spouse,

parents, children, relatives, friends, and everything have

been ordained by God. Behind everything that happens to us

each day is God’s sovereign arrangement. Therefore, we have

to learn to read God’s will in the environment. A new

believer may not be that experienced in the leading of the

Spirit, and he may not know that much of the teaching of the

Scripture. But at least he can see God’s hand in the

environment.

Some days, I just need to believe that God’s not out to get me. Ya know?  He loves me, right?

Meanwhile, I’m still learning to seek His will in my environment.  Even if that environment happens to be a microbiology lab.

Welcome to my world, kiddies. 

This is my desk (that, however, is not my ThinkPad):

This is Mimi:

Or, at least, I think that’s her name.  But, it’s probably not.

This is John Pham:

I did an interview with him once, for Science Matters. It never made the cut, though.  He is, however, brilliant.  Just one of my many PhD candidate friends, ya know?

This is my fridge:

(Well, fine, it’s the lab’s fridge and we store bacteria and broth in there, but I put my groceries in there once.  John told me to cover the groceries otherwise I might die of an air-borne infection.  Some might say I like to live life on the edge.)

This is what my teaching assistant Liisa (yes, two i’s!) drew on the board:

It’s always good to go back to the basics.  Like in kindergarten.  Like drawing ovals and circles.  Except now we call them rods and cocci.

Back at home, this is my wok:

Sliced shiitake mushrooms with watercress, shredded carrots, and chopped tomatoes. Stir-fry in olive oil and season with salt.

This was my first time buying watercress.  I have a story to go along with it, but basically it involves the cashier ringing it in as “spinach bunch”, me complaining to customer service (okay to be accurate, I was reporting a mistake), me eating it raw that night, deciding it tastes disgusting, me trying to juice it the next morning to alleviate the eating part, me throwing out the entire juice later on, and the stir-fry as a last-ditch effort before the thing made its way to the garbage can.

Fortunately, it was good.  In fact, it was so good that I never got around to giving it to my friend to whom I promised I would let try if it ever did turn out good.  Sorry, Josh.  I owe you.  Maybe?

So what do you do when life hands you juice pulp?  Make Juice Pulp Nori Rolls, of course!

What do you do when Food Basics has sweet potatoes for 77 cents a pound? Stock up and try your hand at sweet potato chips, of course!

Don’t be deceived. They weren’t very good. They didn’t taste like chips.  In fact, I’m not sure what they tasted like.  But they were chewy.

And now, please observe my brother’s fine culinary skills.  This is his omelette:

Before catsup:

Après catsup:

We were trying to figure out which version looked better. (What do you think?  Does the catsup (ketchup, I know!) dress it up? Or does it just make eggs look trashy??)

Well, now that I’ve re-surfaced my head to acknowledge the blogosphere, I had better retreat back to my non-cyber environment.  Bacterial genetics, here I come!

After all, there’s no better way to tackle challenges than with a smile, right?

Learning to know His will in my environment – with tears and with smiles -

Aletheia