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Grace is the overflowing favor of God, and you can always count on it being available to draw upon when needed. "...in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses" - that is where our patience is tested (2 Corinthians 6:4). It is not a question of praying and asking God to help you, it is taking the grace of God now. We tend to make prayer the preparation for our service, yet it is never than in the Bible. Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - and draw on the grace of God in your moment of need.

In all things, display in your life a drawing on the grace of God, which will show evidence to yourself and to other that you are a miracle of His. Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. One of the greatest proofs that you are drawing on the grace of God is that you can be totally humiliated before others without displaying even the slightest trace of anything but His grace.

Excerpt taken from my My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers, June 26.

It is amazing the amount of God's grace that has been poured into, over, and all around me all my life. And even more throughout college and pharmacy school. It really is true that his grace and provision will always be more than enough. Today, while I was in the office, I found out I received two scholarships toward my pharmacy education. The first thing I did when I found out was thank God and then I called my parents to let them know the good news. I am immensely grateful and as I sit here, all I can think about all the blessings that have taken the form of people, opportunities, gifts, and memories that God has filled my life with.

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I am feeling much better now.

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I'm in pharmacy school and I would like to think I have matured a little since my days as a wee freshman in college. But some things don't change.

Last week I went into the pharmacy for the first time since midterms started and as I was doing the usual dispensing, consulting, and doing my intern thang, I pull out a label for Cialis. Awhile back, I wrote an entry on this prescription drug and I mentioned to Gregg how the first question he told me to research pertained to this drug. Not content to leave the conversation as it was, he told me to look up its duration of action and how often a patient can use this drug on my handy-dandy smartphone that I bought recently. After much scrambling, I managed to find the literature and report to him my answer.

As I was putting away baskets, he tells me, "You need to face reality".

Me: "...huh?"

Gregg: "Some people do it everyday".

Me:
Fortunately, I haven't had the opportunity to consult a patient on Cialis yet but I imagine I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. I'm not trying to laugh at the poor guy's flaccidness or anything, I just don't think I have reached that level of maturity yet.

I then proceeded to have the most awkward conversation with my preceptor about drinking, clubbing, and sex. He also told me how I would be a bitter person by the time I reach his age as a pharmacist. I told him, "My spirit will never be crushed!" And then Gregg, being the ball of sunshine he is, tells me, "10 years from now, I am going to come to your pharmacy and poop on your counter and leave it there. Let's see if you'll be happy then"

Gregg, I will bag your poop and gladly consult you how to properly dispose of it.

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I feel abandoned and despite my best efforts to get out of this feeling, ironically, abandonment won't leave me.

Hebrews 13:5

New International Version (NIV)

⁵ Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”

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The pharmacy was quite pleasant last Thursday and I had a very enjoyable and productive day. Gregg's task for me that day was to go through all the OTC aisles and write down every product I would recommend for certain disease states. It nearly took the entire day and I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of OTC and homeopathic remedies available. But it was definitely good to go through these products and now I can recommend ANY OTC! BUAHAHAH. I just need to go over the consultations and review their active ingredients...boo.

Back at school, I am taking an independent elective course that our group has lovingly called P.R.O.V.E: Pacific Rx Outreach Video Education (or something like that, we honestly just wanted a cool sounding acronym and everything else fell into place). The premise of the elective is to create patient education videos on drugs for certain disease states in a way that makes medical jargon make sense and show how your pharmacist is an awesome resource! Most importantly, we want to make these videos accessible to our patients who may not have the best health literacy so we plan on translating them in a variety of languages and focusing the videos on certain ethnic populations by incorporating familiar cultural aspects into our projects. ANYWAY, our first disease state we're tackling is diabetes and my job is the illustrator and finding information on glucose meters and test strips. So now this is where I tie in all the stuff I have been researching into the pharmacy setting...

The highlight of my most recent visit to the pharmacy was when I had finally reached the pharmacy counter to look up the diabetic meters and test strips. One of the techs was helping a customer in finding a lancet but instead, she was holding a glucose meter. She saw me, gave me a look of desperation, and left me there holding the glucose meter, my notebook, and a blank stare from the customer. In my head I was thinking, "Now is the the time to P.R.O.V.E my knowledge of diabetic devices!!!" Sure enough I explained to the patient what she was looking for and pointed her to the correct product. I felt like I was spewing rainbows because I was so glad to put my knowledge to use.

Bottom line: It feels good to help people.