"That I may know Him and the power of His
resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings being conformed to His
death." Philippians 3:10 How is it that our best times, are during our
worst times? Through 2 years of medical school, I've seen times where I
realized I am nothing and times where I felt like I had this thing figured out.
And I can say I would rather be in those days where I was exhausted and didn't
know how I could continue studying another day, where all I could see was my
inadequacy, where God felt so close I heard Him whisper. It is in these moments
that I have felt most alive. That I may know Him. This week I took my step 1
national medical board exam, thus, completing my 2nd year. The months leading
up to it where some of the hardest I can remember. But God reminded me during
this time that He is my treasure, and my goal is that I may know Him.
And then begs the question that every Christian and even
non-Christian medical student asks, if we are to share in this suffering, how
can we not be crushed but the weight of it all? How can we be vulnerable enough
to weep with those who weep, when there are so many of them, how can we bare
this weight without it cutting into our very souls and making our hearts callous
to it all? The answer Dr. Mohrmann gives is in the very patients who bring us
this suffering. Yes, they come to us for healing, but yet they bring a healing
to us of their own. Our stories intertwine when we share in their pain. We not
only become part of theirs, but they a part of ours. She goes on to mention the
community of health care workers and Believers around us. We all together share
these burdens and thus the weight is lifted. But I wonder then, what about the physician
serving in Belgium, or Nigeria, or Turkey who is apart from such a community?
This I pondered for a while, there must be an answer in
Christ, for He is enough for all things! . . . “that I may know Him.” . . . “And
the power of His resurrection.” . . . “and the fellowship of His suffering.”
There in this verse that God has brought me to countless times over the past
few weeks was the answer. Who am I to think that we alone suffer from our
trials, and not also the one who created us? Yes His suffering was on the cross
where He paid in full for all of sin, the same sin that brought death and
disease into this world. Yes, suffering with Him does mean in persecution, but
why do we think it is limited to only that? Wouldn’t the God who made us for
Himself and who loves us more deeply than we could comprehend, would it not
also come as a sting of pain to Him when we go through tragedy? If He loves us
so, would He not also hurt with us in all things? Granted, He does allow
suffering, and this is a topic to discuss at another time. He allows suffering,
knowing how it will hurt both us and Him, but also knowing that the good that
will come of it is worth that suffering. And there is our hope! “we also glory
in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and
perseverance character, and character hope” (Rm 5:3,4.) God lovingly allows us to go through
disease and grief that we may have hope because through it we know Him more, as
we join in the fellowship of His suffering. So in essence, as a physician who
is exposed and vulnerable to all the sorrow, and who is joining in so much
suffering, could we not know God more and more through it? Is it not then a
blessing to bare the weight of it all? Yes, it is a weight that can easy break,
easily crush any who try to bare it alone, without Christ. He is the hinge on
which it all swings. Suffering with Him, means fellowship with God and hope and
peace and joy, but suffering without crushes, destroys and leaves scares and death
in its wake.
This is what a green 3rd year medical student
can bring to the hurting. In all that I will do wrong, and in all my failures,
I have this hope. Honestly, I don’t really know how that will work out
practically yet, because I have like 0 experience. But my prayer is that in the
years to come God would mold me into that kind of physician. Oh God, would you
make me into a physician that can stand in the midst of life-shattering
diagnosis with those to whom it wrecks their lives and face it with them. Let
me be able to stand and bare the weight of their sorrow that they may have a
companion in that moment who is not afraid to look it straight on. May I not
run away from their tears, but stay in the silence, the uncomfortable, the
sobbing, and may I point to a hope that brings meaning to it all. Lord, may I
stand firm on you so I can stand firm for them. May I be a way that they can
know you, as YOU join in their suffering. Lord, use me to so shine on their
hurt that you can bring ultimate healing! And at the end of the day, oh Lord,
remind me to leave it all at your feet, remind me that you are the hope, you
are the healer, you are the treasure, that it may not crush me! Oh that I may
know You!
God brought me through boards, and now I look to a year
of rotations where my inadequacy and my failures and short comings will be
constantly pointed out in order that I may learn. As I look to this next
chapter in my life I am confronted by the fears of facing a real human being, a
fellow sojourner in life who is hurting in some way and asking me for help.
Thankfully I will have much help, yet it still causes me to ponder what kind of
student physician will I be? How will I react to the suffering that stares me
in the face, how will I come alongside and bear the burdens of those coming to
me with them? Somehow can I, even as a green 3rd year medical student, impact
the lives of my patients? So many questions, and yet I don't even know what
they are yet.
So here I am, a few days after my board exam, sitting in
front of the endless ocean that reminds more of God's awesomeness than any
other scene. For whatever reason it is here that my mind is clearest and I can
think more deeply. My companion here a book by Dr. Margret E. Mohhrman entitled
"Medicine as Ministry." Again I find myself a student, not of the
sciences this time but rather of how as a Christian physician I should approach
the person behind the disease.
She starts by pointing out our society has turned life
and health into a major idol. We go to extreme lengths to preserve life as if
the death rate were not 100%. But it is this certainty of death that gives life
so much meaning. Life itself is only a secondary good, because God is our
Ultimate good. So then I ask what my role is. I mean 100% of people die, so any
person I help will inevitably fall to some disease or accident eventually. So
what is my role, but prolonging the inevitable? Can my time in between really
be that meaningful? As I continue reading she then points out that how we can
impact each life is by knowing their stories not just the diseases, case
studies or interesting biological processes. In their story, their disease is
not just the name medicine gives it (like sickle cell, leukemia ect) but rather
is known more intimately to them as tragedy, pain, or 'that monster inside
me.' In order for me or anyone really to
fully help the whole person, we must know and understand as much of the story
as we can. We need to know who they are in order to know how to best love them
in treating their illness. We need to come alongside and share in their sorrow
and not just with pity but rather "deep, aching, compelling sorrow that
breaks our hearts even while it motivates and empowers our resolve to
understand and to love."
Sorrow, yes, but what a Christian can bring is the only
opposite great enough to conquer sorrow. As Dr. Mohrmann puts it, "the theological
witness needed to reestablish and reaffirm the patient’s relationship to God is
the witness of the cross and its double message that evil is real and God is
good. It is a message that both validates the reality of the suffering and
denies that the pain is absolute." Because we have a good God whose love
for us cannot be overcome by anything, there is good in suffering. We can see
beyond the disease to the purpose it holds.
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