Crossroads...

Brothers and sisters, take ear and listen to the cries abroad from your sister's heart.

God, I thought I knew your perfect path for my life: to become a doctor. For these hands of mine are eager to heal, this heart within my chest bears a cry of compassion...for the impoverished, the naked, the hungry, the abandoned, the ailing...

I'm going to bear it all, be what it may-grim and discontent.

Yesterday, I spent the better part of the day in the cancer center at a hospital. My Aunt needed moral support from my sister and I, because she had recently discovered a knot in her breast and feared the worst. The doctors confirmed that there were no signs of Breast Cancer as of yet, but what they unexpectedly found was a coating of cysts covering the outer layer of her womb.

This is not the first time I have heard of this grave affliction. My mother developed cysts after her pregnancy with my sister, and it caused a great deal of complications with her two-and-a-half premature baby. The doctors were concerned about my mother's condition if she had another infant. The outcome could have possibly been death, but that was a risk my mother was willing to take when she planned my conception. With God's Grace, there were only slight complications with my one-month premature birth. My mother, at the time, was twenty-one when she developed these cysts, and my Aunt is fifty-two. The time at which they develop fluctuates, but they are no doubtfully hereditary. My maternal grandmother had them, and my younger sister developed them this previous year. I am wondering: shall I develop them, as well?

I worry about my children: if I want children as I so avidly do, then I must have them at a terribly young age. This is the least of my worries, by far! Another one of my aunts was married and had given birth to her legitimate son by age seventeen, which is my current age.

I am wondering now if it is God's Will for me to become a doctor, for I am not sure if I have the crucial time necessary to do so: a minimum twelve years of medical school. But God...I desire this aspiration greatly!

During my wait in the cancer center, I saw a feeble woman strain to grasp her purse, and by doing so, she moaned in agony, "Oh, my knee!" This sound resonated within the chambers of my heart, and I knew more than ever that I wanted to heal her knee, to heal the sicknesses of every other person lying in heart wrenching agony.

I'm at crossroads in my life, and I don't know which road to travel.

Pray for your sister.