"Thorn in the flesh"

They say medical school is hard. They say it is not for the faint of heart. They say if you’re going to do it, you had better have a reason that’s worth it. I don’t want to given anyone the impression that my journey thus far has been unrealistically easy, or that it is impossible. My goal is to be open and share how I am being taught both in school and in life. The reason I haven’t written in so long is partially because free time as been hard to come by, but also because I haven’t had much good to say. The start of cardiopulmonary block hasn’t been wonderful and I’ve been in a lull. But, that’s life and God is still there in the midst of not-greatness, in the mundane everyday things of life. And so I’m writing. I’m choosing to be open but how all those people where right, to some extent, that medical school is hard.

Coming back from break was like being thrown back into a warzone after leave and getting hit with an attack your first day. OK, so maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but cardio physiology is no cake-walk and my brain was hurting within the first 10 mins. I was flashing back to my physics classes in undergrad and exercise physiology with electrical currents and dipoles and pressure equations galore! Don’t get me wrong, the heart, well the entire vasculature system, is so incredibly amazing it blows my mind! But suddenly I was back in the thick of it again.

Honestly though, class work, studying, that is not what makes medical school so hard. Really anyone could do it you just have to work really hard at it. Conceptually it’s not hard, rather it’s the amount of information and the time you have to jam it into your brain. Honestly, grades don’t even really matter, and I am so thankful I don’t stress over them. So what then could be so hard?

I am a very passionate person. I love hard and care deeply. That is partially why I believe God has made me to be a physician. But with that comes a weakness. One that is rather hard to define or pinpoint. But I’m going to try. For example, my room right now is full of pictures of people. People who have impacted my life and people I have poured into, people I don’t want to forget and memories I never want to forget. But with all of those memories and faces comes a deep pain. A deep hurt that those are in the past, that the present, right now is a world without them all. Slowly, very slowly I am starting to find my nitch here. My friends here, my support group my mission field, but it is far from being established and with the amount of time I have to dedicate to it. It could be a very long process. What I’m saying is that what makes medical school so hard is that life doesn’t stop while you’re there. Life too easily becomes an afterthought, second priority. But, what I am realizing is that in order for me to effectively learn and focus I need a life here. So that when I see those pictures on the wall it wont be a reminder of what I no longer have but rather of a different time with different people. I want to smile in remembrance and move on.

I do want to say that not everyone has had this difficulty. Actually, it seems I am one of the few. Instead we each struggle with something different. Some part of life, or school that just nags at us making everything else difficult. No one has it all together. But here is my last thought for now: I used to view this struggle to let go of the past as a major weakness. Something I had to just push through. I just need to grow up and mature a little bit. And yes, part of that may be true, but now I wonder, did God make this so hard for a reason? Did He wire me this way and orchestrate these circumstances to teach me, or to guide me in a specific direction? I always believed God gave us gifts, talents and abilities specific for what His purpose for us is, but why then would He not give us specific weaknesses for His specific purposes. Paul in the New Testament tells us he has a “thorn in the flesh” that kept him humble. And honestly, my struggle to stay focused here and not the past and where I wish I were, makes me dependent on God. He could have given me an immediate support system or people here that I immediately connected with on a deep level. He could have made it easier to move on, but He didn’t. Now everyday I have to surrender to Him, depend on Him completely with each new day. And that is what I have failed to do lately, thus life has been hard, very hard.

Yet what amazes me still, is that in the midst of it all, I can tell He has still been with me. Enabling me to carry on even when I was mad at Him and didn’t want what He wanted for me. Even when I was being so wrapped up in myself, He still gave me what I needed. That. Is grace. Amazing Grace! I’m not out of the woods yet. I’m still struggling through it one day at a time, but I can be thankful in the midst of it that when He does bring me through it, I will be stronger and I will know God more deeply than ever before. That my friends, is life. So really, medical school is no harder than life itself. 

Wake Up Call!

When I was in Malawi Africa on my first summer long mission trip God first woke me up to something. I was a sophomore in college and all I wanted to do was be done with college so I could move to Africa and begin my ministry. God humbled me like no other that year and that summer in Africa was met with the most spiritual warfare I have ever experienced. Daily I was forced to put on my armor and seek His face. Half way through the trip God showed me that I had only been surviving. Learning how to live without electricity or running water, how to cook my food ect. But He did not send me there to survive. My time there was short, and far be it from me to waste it surviving! 

God sent me there to preach the Gospel. He sent me there to make an eternal impact for His glory. But then as I began to meditate on this sitting in the middle of my mud house in the village, I realized God wasn't talking about Africa. What I hate so much about America and living here is how easy it is forget anyone and everything around you. We are like sucked into this time warp where we are so focused on ourselves we can't see anything else.  You see, it's easier to fight Satan when he is right in your face, screaming at you, not when he quietly offers you a lazy boy recliner to sit in while he destroys the world around you. 

A few nights ago I participated in Secret Church. It's a 'meeting' so to speak of Christians all over the world via an online simulcast of David Platt going through the Bible. Together we worshiped, we were fed, and we prayed for our brothers and sisters who are persecuted. This year he talked about  Heaven, Hell, and the ends times. All this to say. Finally last night,God woke me up again. We CANNOT just be surviving!

I was reminded that even though we act like everything is fine and we just go through our routines, that it is not fine! Our lives here are but a vapor and God has put us here for a reason! That applies to medical school as well! I do not live as though Christ could come back at any moment, I act as though everything thing and all our responsibility stops because I am in medical school! That's baloney! Christ could come back at any moment! He doesn't have to wait until I finish and become doctor, or wait until I have lived a good long life here. So what then? 

What if God comes back while I'm in medical school? That begs then the question at least from me, why in the world would God make me work that hard to get into medical school and work that hard to stay in med school if in the end I was not going to be a doctor but just go on the be with Him? I have a purpose right now to preach the Gospel!  God sent me to medical school to preach the Gospel! And if it is His will one day I may practice as a doctor, but I cannot be consumed with just surviving! At secret church one of the speakers made a really good point: He was talking about how the purpose of persecution is not always just because of hate for the ones being persecuted. Persecution is to silence those who are spreading the fame of Christ. It can be rejoiced in and counted as an honor because it is a direct result of fulfilling that which God made us for! So if we, as comfortable American Christians, are not being persecuted and are choosing to be silent, we cannot identify with our brothers and sisters sin Christ because we are identifying with the enemy in our silence! 

If what we believe is true, if Jesus really is the Christ and if Heaven and Hell are real, and if God is the God of the Bible, than our friends, our classmates, our patients are in a lot of trouble! If we really love them, we MUST do something about it! 

So what does that mean? well, for one, life isn't about us, not even when we are doing something crazy for God like medical school. Our main purpose in life is to share Christ with those around us, to make Him known. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like. It will be different for each one of us. God has called me right now to be a medical student. That means that part of me worshiping Him is by studying and doing my best for Him, but I also need to make it a point to share Him whenever I can with those around me. 

And, maybe just maybe if by God's grace I can live my life with Him completely at the center, then I can be the kind of doctor He has called me to be. See, one of the hardest things about being a physician or any medical personnel for that matter, is having compassion, empathy and 'being there' for your patients without allowing all those horrible stories and diseases make your heart hard and calloused. Every story hurts, how do you hurt with the patient without allowing it all to weight you down? The answer, as a follower of Christ, is Him. He is our joy and peace and hope that is NOT dependent on circumstances. But that means we must daily rely on Him for everything! Yes, our patients will be dealing with very hard things, and we have the answer to the hope and joy and peace they are searching for! I pray I will not be too consumed by the physical to ignore the more important needs of my patients! I pray God would mold me into the kind of physician that points all my patients to Him!