It was my first time seeing her, and a long conversation about what to do with her conflicting feelings over an unplanned pregnancy was not what I expected to encounter upon entering the room. She'd been pregnant half a dozen times before, but a combination of repeated first-trimester miscarriages and third-trimester losses meant she had only two living children. Just hearing her story of waking up several weeks prior to full-term in a pool of blood and then delivering a dead baby was enough to make me want to cry for her. A history of childhood abuse and adult rape only increased my admiration for the courage that made her able to continue dreaming for her future.
But this was an office visit with limited time, so I avoided tears on her behalf as I heard her stories and brought the conversation back to the issue at hand - her current pregnancy. Due to serious health problems and a history of complicated, high-risk pregnancies, she was unsure that she should carry this pregnancy if she wanted her living children to have a mother with whom to grow up. She cried to me - a near stranger - over her agony of deciding she must end the pregnancy. We spoke of options, and I affirmed our support for her medically and emotionally whichever option she chose.
The encounter reminded me of the confusing way my roles and identities intersect as I start the practice of medicine. I believe strongly that my primary interface in any interaction is that of one human being encountering another. But as she spoke of the recommendations health care workers have made to her in the past and of her feeling that the only responsible path was to end the pregnancy, I was reminded that as a doctor I may still be a human being, but I am also more alongside that.
I am a person with power in this relationship. I feel it weigh on my shoulders as patients ask me questions. It is power to influence. Power to persuade or recommend. Power to change her mind... Or power to give away to empower another.
How do I deal responsibly with that power? How do I balance my own values as a human being with the inequality of our status in this relationship and my own deep desire not to push my beliefs on someone else? How do I reckon with the fact that I as a human being am accountable for my own choice to influence - or not - in one direction or another while also seeking to let my patient be responsible for her own choices? How do we ever persuade wholeheartedly while avoiding manipulation? How do I take off this cloak of authority and seek to relate on a level as one person, one woman, to another?
All of these questions hung on my heart, grabbing my attention and shaping the way I spoke and responded as I spoke with my patient. And all of them remained as I wrote my note on our visit together through my tears. I shared this story at a medical conference seminar on reflective writing recently. One of the comments I got in response was from a fellow believer: "You very much nailed the tension of living out our faith in a power relationship but love always wins."
Love always wins. What does that look like? I'm not sure in the day-to-day whether I make the right choices. But it is a relief to be reminded that at the end of the day - whether I agree or disagree with my patients' choices, whether I have complete peace with what I said and left unsaid - if I have loved them, I have done what is pleasing to God. And all the best advice and soundest options counseling without love would be worth nothing. Now for learning the wisdom of figuring out when love looks like emotional support and when it requires hard conversations...or maybe it's both.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
breathing
started to be written in early September 2010:
I just finished my surgery rotation. As part of the rotation, we spend a few mornings with anesthesiologists doing intubations, practicing breathing for people with the bag-mask, etc. It is common practice after someone is asleep/unconscious to breathe (ventilate) for them using the bag and mask for a little while so that their lungs fill up with oxygen for the body to use while they are not breathing temporarily during the actual process of putting the breathing tube in place (intubation). It struck me watching the bag-mask ventilation how intimate a process this is. It's not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the motion of my right hand pressing the bag to push air into the mask and my other hand holding up the chin to open up the airway for the air to pass through is strikingly crucial for the patient who is asleep.
I am reminded in thinking about breath and the life to which it connects us of how often that image comes up in the Bible. It is there in the very beginning as God breathes his breath of life into the human being, "and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). It is the promise of God to his people as they wait in exile, feeling dead and disassembled like a pile of dry bones without the breath of life to hold them together and give them purpose: "I will put breath in you, and you will come to life" (Eze 37:4-6). It is there when Jesus speaks to the startled, uncertain disciples after his resurrection, breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit (Breath) along with his peace and his commission (Jn. 20:21-23).
That final image always reminds me of the way C.S. Lewis picks up the image of God breathing on us in the Chronicles of Narnia. He pictures the great Lion Aslan breathing new life and courage and vision into his children. Aslan breathes onto Lucy to help her meet the challenge of doing right alone. He breathes onto the cold stone statues of the Witch's courtyards, bringing them to radiant life.
The word in both Hebrew (ruah) and Greek (pneuma) for spirit and breath/wind are the same. Thus, the promise of God's Spirit to live in his people is a promise for his breath, his life, to live in us, enabling us to live the life we were made to live. It is God's promise that he will pour out his Spirit on all people, Jews and Greeks (Acts 2:17). It is his Breath in us that is our deposit of salvation, a guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14).
So as I have the precious and uncommon opportunity to breathe temporarily for others, I think about the breath I myself breathe. I think about the life I live and the possibility that I have to live out God's life, his Spirit-empowered life, in my own hours and days. I think about the possibility of breathing out the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ, the smell of life, the rich, sweet, poignant aroma of the Living One (2 Cor. 2:14-16) in the midst of lifeless bones, despairing hearts, suffering people. As Paul says, "And who is equal to such a task?" May it be so.
I just finished my surgery rotation. As part of the rotation, we spend a few mornings with anesthesiologists doing intubations, practicing breathing for people with the bag-mask, etc. It is common practice after someone is asleep/unconscious to breathe (ventilate) for them using the bag and mask for a little while so that their lungs fill up with oxygen for the body to use while they are not breathing temporarily during the actual process of putting the breathing tube in place (intubation). It struck me watching the bag-mask ventilation how intimate a process this is. It's not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the motion of my right hand pressing the bag to push air into the mask and my other hand holding up the chin to open up the airway for the air to pass through is strikingly crucial for the patient who is asleep.
I am reminded in thinking about breath and the life to which it connects us of how often that image comes up in the Bible. It is there in the very beginning as God breathes his breath of life into the human being, "and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). It is the promise of God to his people as they wait in exile, feeling dead and disassembled like a pile of dry bones without the breath of life to hold them together and give them purpose: "I will put breath in you, and you will come to life" (Eze 37:4-6). It is there when Jesus speaks to the startled, uncertain disciples after his resurrection, breathing on them and giving them the Holy Spirit (Breath) along with his peace and his commission (Jn. 20:21-23).
That final image always reminds me of the way C.S. Lewis picks up the image of God breathing on us in the Chronicles of Narnia. He pictures the great Lion Aslan breathing new life and courage and vision into his children. Aslan breathes onto Lucy to help her meet the challenge of doing right alone. He breathes onto the cold stone statues of the Witch's courtyards, bringing them to radiant life.
The word in both Hebrew (ruah) and Greek (pneuma) for spirit and breath/wind are the same. Thus, the promise of God's Spirit to live in his people is a promise for his breath, his life, to live in us, enabling us to live the life we were made to live. It is God's promise that he will pour out his Spirit on all people, Jews and Greeks (Acts 2:17). It is his Breath in us that is our deposit of salvation, a guarantee of our inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14).
So as I have the precious and uncommon opportunity to breathe temporarily for others, I think about the breath I myself breathe. I think about the life I live and the possibility that I have to live out God's life, his Spirit-empowered life, in my own hours and days. I think about the possibility of breathing out the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ, the smell of life, the rich, sweet, poignant aroma of the Living One (2 Cor. 2:14-16) in the midst of lifeless bones, despairing hearts, suffering people. As Paul says, "And who is equal to such a task?" May it be so.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
labor, birth, and rebirth
I recently completed four weeks on obstetrics, logging 12 normal deliveries and two c-sections. I enjoyed it, observing the normal labor course and learning to recognize what falls off the normal curve. I also gained experience in coaching and encouraging women in labor and in pushing and caught a good number of what a friend of mine calls "slippery little buggers." Really, though, I most enjoyed the almost magical moment that usually happens after the birth when the new mom and the baby are enveloped in a happiness that far outweighs what she went through to get there. It so overshadows the previous pain that she usually temporarily forgets that she still has to deliver the placenta. :)
In the course of OB, though, I was reminded that labor and birth are frequent images in Scripture, vivid reminders of how much closer everyone in a community used to be to the pain and blood and delight involved in bringing a new life into the world. This ranges from comparing the prophet or people's pain to the "pangs" of a woman in labor (e.g. Isa. 21:3) writhing "in agony" (Micah 4:10) to descriptions of the Father himself crying out in suffering, gasping and panting, "like a woman in childbirth" in his heartbroken response to the people of Israel's unfaithfulness (Isa. 42:14). This vivid familiarity with the birthing process was even such that the prophets could differentiate between the more intense and longer-lasting pains of a woman's first birth (e.g. Jer. 4:31) vs. subsequent ones. God also recognizes the vulnerability of a woman in labor, promising explicitly to call women in labor back (along with the pregnant, blind, and lame) to the security of Jerusalem and home after the pain of exile among strangers (Jer. 31:8).
The image of birth is used for various "children." In Deuteronomy, Moses calls the people of God to account for deserting and forgetting the God who "fathered you," "who gave you birth," calling to mind the great suffering God has endured in loving and calling and pursuing and wooing such a forgetful, faithless people to give us a new identity in the world as his children (32:18). In Isaiah 26, the people confess that they have "writhed in pain" as in labor but have given birth to wind - to something insubstantial and effervescent - instead of to "salvation," to "people of the world" (vv. 17-19). Most often, however, it is Israel who is pictured as God's child, as far from being forgotten or forsaken as the baby at a mother's breast whom she has borne (Isa. 49:14-16).
The imagery of birth is picked up most fantastically in the New Testament with the incredible story of the birth of God himself as the helpless newborn Jesus to Mary, recounted in Matthew 1 and Luke 2. It is also recorded in its cosmic significance in the revelation of John as the birth of a male child "who will rule all the nations" (Rev. 12:1-2,5). It is clear from the New Testament account that Jesus represents the true Israel, the one in whom all that Israel was meant to be is encapsulated (e.g. OT images for Israel being applied to Jesus with him fulfilling their purposes) and in whom the prophecies and promises are and will be fulfilled. He is the one Man who is truly God's Son, who reflects the Father's image, his heart, his holiness, his love, his compassion, and his justice.
And yet, the apostle John's poetic account of the coming of Jesus begins to hint that there is still even more to the story. Not only, he says, did "the Word become flesh" and make "his dwelling among us." Not only have we "seen his glory," the glory of the one "who came from the Father." But we also have the opportunity - nay, more! - "the right to become children of God." This is not something physical, he clarifies. We are not children born "of natural descent" but "born of God" (Jn. 1:12-14). That picture of Israel being God's child can still apply to us (us!) even though Jesus has come and shown us just how far we as the people of God have gotten off track, how little we bear the image of our Father. We can still be the children of God.
John uses this imagery most in the New Testament, both in his gospel and in his epistles, describing what it means to be a child of God - not continuing in sin (1 Jn. 3:9) because we are of God's seed, loving one another because love comes from God (1 Jn. 4:7), being "born of water and the Spirit" in Jesus' words explaining what it means to be "born again" (Jn. 3:3-5). Peter, too, picks up the language, explaining that we have been born again "not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Pe. 1:23).
The use of birth imagery doesn't even stop there, however. It is used of us as believers, too. We now also have the opportunity to participate in this imagery as something beyond the child of God that is born. We are also part of the birth process. This appears in Romans 8 where creation and we ourselves groan "in the pains of childbirth" as we "patiently" await redemption and adoption with "eager expectation" and with hope (vv. 19-25). Paul describes himself enduring "the pains of childbirth" so that Christ may be formed in the his spiritual children, the Galatian church (Gal. 4:19-20). We have the opportunity to participate in that formation so that we as God's children may more closely resemble our elder Brother, God's Son. The apostle John also picks up the imagery as he quotes Jesus comparing the pain of the disciples' temporary separation from Himself to the pain of a woman giving birth to a child. Just as a woman giving birth quickly "forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world," however, he promises that the disciples' joy will far outshine their present pain (Jn. 16:19-22).
These pictures mean more to me as I think about the women in labor I have seen. The pain of separation from God is more vividly pictured, as is his pain over us when we turn away from Him. The process of birth and the precious fragility of a newborn is all the more poignant for the fact that the Maker of mankind was once so very breakable. The immediate and consuming joy on a mother's face as she is handed her little one, able to hold him for the first time and automatically comforting and cuddling the wailing infant, helps me to remember God's tender care for each of us and his delight over new children's births as his children. The satisfaction in participating in the labor process and seeing it through to the birth encourages me to keep holding up my end of participating with the Holy Spirit's work of forming Christ in me. The way in which the weariness, pain, bleeding, and risk are all ever so worth the baby at the end enable me to await with more hope and eager expectation my and our own redemption and adoption.
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pe. 1:3-5).
In the course of OB, though, I was reminded that labor and birth are frequent images in Scripture, vivid reminders of how much closer everyone in a community used to be to the pain and blood and delight involved in bringing a new life into the world. This ranges from comparing the prophet or people's pain to the "pangs" of a woman in labor (e.g. Isa. 21:3) writhing "in agony" (Micah 4:10) to descriptions of the Father himself crying out in suffering, gasping and panting, "like a woman in childbirth" in his heartbroken response to the people of Israel's unfaithfulness (Isa. 42:14). This vivid familiarity with the birthing process was even such that the prophets could differentiate between the more intense and longer-lasting pains of a woman's first birth (e.g. Jer. 4:31) vs. subsequent ones. God also recognizes the vulnerability of a woman in labor, promising explicitly to call women in labor back (along with the pregnant, blind, and lame) to the security of Jerusalem and home after the pain of exile among strangers (Jer. 31:8).
The image of birth is used for various "children." In Deuteronomy, Moses calls the people of God to account for deserting and forgetting the God who "fathered you," "who gave you birth," calling to mind the great suffering God has endured in loving and calling and pursuing and wooing such a forgetful, faithless people to give us a new identity in the world as his children (32:18). In Isaiah 26, the people confess that they have "writhed in pain" as in labor but have given birth to wind - to something insubstantial and effervescent - instead of to "salvation," to "people of the world" (vv. 17-19). Most often, however, it is Israel who is pictured as God's child, as far from being forgotten or forsaken as the baby at a mother's breast whom she has borne (Isa. 49:14-16).
The imagery of birth is picked up most fantastically in the New Testament with the incredible story of the birth of God himself as the helpless newborn Jesus to Mary, recounted in Matthew 1 and Luke 2. It is also recorded in its cosmic significance in the revelation of John as the birth of a male child "who will rule all the nations" (Rev. 12:1-2,5). It is clear from the New Testament account that Jesus represents the true Israel, the one in whom all that Israel was meant to be is encapsulated (e.g. OT images for Israel being applied to Jesus with him fulfilling their purposes) and in whom the prophecies and promises are and will be fulfilled. He is the one Man who is truly God's Son, who reflects the Father's image, his heart, his holiness, his love, his compassion, and his justice.
And yet, the apostle John's poetic account of the coming of Jesus begins to hint that there is still even more to the story. Not only, he says, did "the Word become flesh" and make "his dwelling among us." Not only have we "seen his glory," the glory of the one "who came from the Father." But we also have the opportunity - nay, more! - "the right to become children of God." This is not something physical, he clarifies. We are not children born "of natural descent" but "born of God" (Jn. 1:12-14). That picture of Israel being God's child can still apply to us (us!) even though Jesus has come and shown us just how far we as the people of God have gotten off track, how little we bear the image of our Father. We can still be the children of God.
John uses this imagery most in the New Testament, both in his gospel and in his epistles, describing what it means to be a child of God - not continuing in sin (1 Jn. 3:9) because we are of God's seed, loving one another because love comes from God (1 Jn. 4:7), being "born of water and the Spirit" in Jesus' words explaining what it means to be "born again" (Jn. 3:3-5). Peter, too, picks up the language, explaining that we have been born again "not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God" (1 Pe. 1:23).
The use of birth imagery doesn't even stop there, however. It is used of us as believers, too. We now also have the opportunity to participate in this imagery as something beyond the child of God that is born. We are also part of the birth process. This appears in Romans 8 where creation and we ourselves groan "in the pains of childbirth" as we "patiently" await redemption and adoption with "eager expectation" and with hope (vv. 19-25). Paul describes himself enduring "the pains of childbirth" so that Christ may be formed in the his spiritual children, the Galatian church (Gal. 4:19-20). We have the opportunity to participate in that formation so that we as God's children may more closely resemble our elder Brother, God's Son. The apostle John also picks up the imagery as he quotes Jesus comparing the pain of the disciples' temporary separation from Himself to the pain of a woman giving birth to a child. Just as a woman giving birth quickly "forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world," however, he promises that the disciples' joy will far outshine their present pain (Jn. 16:19-22).
These pictures mean more to me as I think about the women in labor I have seen. The pain of separation from God is more vividly pictured, as is his pain over us when we turn away from Him. The process of birth and the precious fragility of a newborn is all the more poignant for the fact that the Maker of mankind was once so very breakable. The immediate and consuming joy on a mother's face as she is handed her little one, able to hold him for the first time and automatically comforting and cuddling the wailing infant, helps me to remember God's tender care for each of us and his delight over new children's births as his children. The satisfaction in participating in the labor process and seeing it through to the birth encourages me to keep holding up my end of participating with the Holy Spirit's work of forming Christ in me. The way in which the weariness, pain, bleeding, and risk are all ever so worth the baby at the end enable me to await with more hope and eager expectation my and our own redemption and adoption.
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Pe. 1:3-5).
Thursday, June 24, 2010
gardening
I've spent a fair amount of time gardening recently, particularly since the lack of rain over the past week or two has required my early rising to water for about 45 minutes prior to our 7 am orientation day starts. Despite growing up eating fresh vegetables from our large garden all summer, I never realized how much regular work a garden was (thanks, Mom!).
In particular, though, as I learn to garden, I've been thinking about weeding. In many ways, weeding is simple - as long as you know what is supposed to grow there, everything else is pretty much weeds. It is satisfying that even if I don't recognize the weed, I have learned to recognize my small sprouting plants and so can confidently uproot the weeds and allow my plants to flourish. My mom says we enjoy weeding because it is like medicine - taking out the bad stuff and leaving room for the good to grow. I just never thought it would be so much work to keep the bad stuff under control. It grows so easily and quickly while the good stuff seems to grow relatively slowly and require a lot of careful watering and tending.
After spending three hours on it yesterday, I was thinking about the parallels in the rest of life. How much effort do I put into weeding out bad things in my life - disciplining myself not to make bad choices, to use my time wisely, to stay connected to people when it takes effort, to study when I'd rather read or relax watching clips on YouTube? How quickly weeds spring up in my life! How much easier they are to pull out when they're small and when I stay on top of the weeding than when they're better rooted! Do I know and love the good things I want to grow so well that I can easily uproot the bad things that would choke them out?
Conversely, how much effort do I put into planting and tending good things - good habits, healthy relationships, my understanding of and love for God, friendships that challenge me to grow, self-discipline - in my life? Do I carefully pick out seeds that will lead to fruit I will enjoy and do the things (i.e. plant them at an appropriate depth and keep them well watered) that will give them the chance to sprout and then deepen their roots? Do I delight in the small, fragile green growth of my seeds long before they grow fruit or even flowers (a one-inch stem and two leaves for my zucchini were so exciting that it took me far longer than it should have to prune them back to the two plants/hill they should be)? Do I mourn the seeds that didn't sprout and vigilantly fight the enemies (weeds, slugs, insect borers, etc.) that would destroy my plants? Do I prop up the ones with weak stems like I do my tomatoes, making support for their weakness because they will then be able to grow and bear fruit?
Far too often, the answers to most of these questions are "no." I have learned that it takes oft-surprising effort and discipline to get the literal fruits of one's labors in a garden. Since I think God delights no less in good fruit in my life (and mourns the bad), may I learn to be a good gardener of my own life and choices as I likewise seek to raise a healthy garden with lots of vegetables for later in the summer. May I remember always that God works alongside me, breathing life into both me and my plants, delighting in every small growth and working towards fruit we can both enjoy.
In particular, though, as I learn to garden, I've been thinking about weeding. In many ways, weeding is simple - as long as you know what is supposed to grow there, everything else is pretty much weeds. It is satisfying that even if I don't recognize the weed, I have learned to recognize my small sprouting plants and so can confidently uproot the weeds and allow my plants to flourish. My mom says we enjoy weeding because it is like medicine - taking out the bad stuff and leaving room for the good to grow. I just never thought it would be so much work to keep the bad stuff under control. It grows so easily and quickly while the good stuff seems to grow relatively slowly and require a lot of careful watering and tending.
After spending three hours on it yesterday, I was thinking about the parallels in the rest of life. How much effort do I put into weeding out bad things in my life - disciplining myself not to make bad choices, to use my time wisely, to stay connected to people when it takes effort, to study when I'd rather read or relax watching clips on YouTube? How quickly weeds spring up in my life! How much easier they are to pull out when they're small and when I stay on top of the weeding than when they're better rooted! Do I know and love the good things I want to grow so well that I can easily uproot the bad things that would choke them out?
Conversely, how much effort do I put into planting and tending good things - good habits, healthy relationships, my understanding of and love for God, friendships that challenge me to grow, self-discipline - in my life? Do I carefully pick out seeds that will lead to fruit I will enjoy and do the things (i.e. plant them at an appropriate depth and keep them well watered) that will give them the chance to sprout and then deepen their roots? Do I delight in the small, fragile green growth of my seeds long before they grow fruit or even flowers (a one-inch stem and two leaves for my zucchini were so exciting that it took me far longer than it should have to prune them back to the two plants/hill they should be)? Do I mourn the seeds that didn't sprout and vigilantly fight the enemies (weeds, slugs, insect borers, etc.) that would destroy my plants? Do I prop up the ones with weak stems like I do my tomatoes, making support for their weakness because they will then be able to grow and bear fruit?
Far too often, the answers to most of these questions are "no." I have learned that it takes oft-surprising effort and discipline to get the literal fruits of one's labors in a garden. Since I think God delights no less in good fruit in my life (and mourns the bad), may I learn to be a good gardener of my own life and choices as I likewise seek to raise a healthy garden with lots of vegetables for later in the summer. May I remember always that God works alongside me, breathing life into both me and my plants, delighting in every small growth and working towards fruit we can both enjoy.
update
So it's been a while since I posted, and I had some thoughts I'd like to share or at least have the chance to process externally. I hope to continue to do this throughout the year ahead (albeit much less frequently than during my previous travels) as I start residency. If you don't want to continue to follow along, let me know, and I'll see if I can figure out how you can come off the list. :)
I graduated from med school at the end of May and moved the same day - with much packing and hauling help from Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa - to Lancaster for my new residency training. I enjoyed starting a garden and putting in flowers and landscaping in the surprisingly large backyard of my housemate's rowhouse prior to the start of orientation June 14. I also have gotten to attend First Friday downtown in Lancaster, go to two free downtown movies (part of summer series), and begun getting to know my fellow interns (via hosting dinner and later dessert and other local activities), a couple of whom live happily about two blocks away. :) We've had a busy orientation schedule between ACLS, ATLS, EKG learning, computer training, HR paperwork, and even a day at the ropes course. I've enjoyed the chance to ease into figuring out where stuff is in the hospital, making connections with my class and other residents, and settling into the city. I start in the hospital July 1 on night float for OB (5 pm-7 am Monday-Friday for two weeks), so you can keep me in prayers for that!
I graduated from med school at the end of May and moved the same day - with much packing and hauling help from Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa - to Lancaster for my new residency training. I enjoyed starting a garden and putting in flowers and landscaping in the surprisingly large backyard of my housemate's rowhouse prior to the start of orientation June 14. I also have gotten to attend First Friday downtown in Lancaster, go to two free downtown movies (part of summer series), and begun getting to know my fellow interns (via hosting dinner and later dessert and other local activities), a couple of whom live happily about two blocks away. :) We've had a busy orientation schedule between ACLS, ATLS, EKG learning, computer training, HR paperwork, and even a day at the ropes course. I've enjoyed the chance to ease into figuring out where stuff is in the hospital, making connections with my class and other residents, and settling into the city. I start in the hospital July 1 on night float for OB (5 pm-7 am Monday-Friday for two weeks), so you can keep me in prayers for that!
Friday, April 30, 2010
calling
I went on these international rotations partially hoping that God would use them to direct me regarding my future work overseas. Where should I go? With what organization? To what people group?
To my disappointment, I didn't find a particular sense of leading from God on these issues as I was traveling. I struggled with this a bit along the way. Should I have done these rotations? Am I simply experiencing some of the hard parts of living cross-culturally (initial language- and culture-learning, minimal relationships with nationals, the adjustment phase again) with few of the rewards of staying in one place longer-term? Am I missing out on something God wants to be showing me?
As I read On Being a Missionary on the flights back home, the author talked about the issue of calling in missions. Every child of God has a calling from God, a calling to go and serve others, to love and obey God, to learn to live in healthy relationships with others where we slowly learn to put others' needs above our own, to submit to each other in the Body (Church) and to honor others' gifts and abilities and cover for their weaknesses in love. But all who go to serve cross-culturally should also have an additional sense of calling to go there, whether a gradual sense building over time or a one-time supernatural experience of calling, which is necessary to sustain them through the difficulties involved.
I do have that sense, I realized, or I have at a number of times in the past. I don't need to manufacture a new and repeated sense of calling when I don't feel particular direction from God. The choice simply becomes: will I be obedient to the calling God has already revealed to me to live and work cross-culturally and internationally at some point in my future for a number of years? This realization was a relief to me. After all, the larger question of whether I will be obedient to God's will for me is simply the question of the Christian life: will I allow God to be God and trust that his goodness will lead to His plan for me being the best possible route for my life? That is a choice I have made many times in the past and can continue to make now, trusting that the details of his calling on my life will become clear as I choose to follow wherever he leads.
from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35692109@N03/3531523716/
To my disappointment, I didn't find a particular sense of leading from God on these issues as I was traveling. I struggled with this a bit along the way. Should I have done these rotations? Am I simply experiencing some of the hard parts of living cross-culturally (initial language- and culture-learning, minimal relationships with nationals, the adjustment phase again) with few of the rewards of staying in one place longer-term? Am I missing out on something God wants to be showing me?
As I read On Being a Missionary on the flights back home, the author talked about the issue of calling in missions. Every child of God has a calling from God, a calling to go and serve others, to love and obey God, to learn to live in healthy relationships with others where we slowly learn to put others' needs above our own, to submit to each other in the Body (Church) and to honor others' gifts and abilities and cover for their weaknesses in love. But all who go to serve cross-culturally should also have an additional sense of calling to go there, whether a gradual sense building over time or a one-time supernatural experience of calling, which is necessary to sustain them through the difficulties involved.
I do have that sense, I realized, or I have at a number of times in the past. I don't need to manufacture a new and repeated sense of calling when I don't feel particular direction from God. The choice simply becomes: will I be obedient to the calling God has already revealed to me to live and work cross-culturally and internationally at some point in my future for a number of years? This realization was a relief to me. After all, the larger question of whether I will be obedient to God's will for me is simply the question of the Christian life: will I allow God to be God and trust that his goodness will lead to His plan for me being the best possible route for my life? That is a choice I have made many times in the past and can continue to make now, trusting that the details of his calling on my life will become clear as I choose to follow wherever he leads.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
names
I have always enjoyed having a unique name and knowing what it meant (one whom God has promised) and its origin (Hebrew, the story of my birth, etc.). And part of encountering another culture is learning new names and how to pronounce letter combinations you thought couldn't go together. :)
In Zambia, I had a different problem: not smiling at people's names, picked in some cases - I am sure - for how the parents liked the way the word sounded in English even if they didn't know what it meant. Or they simply name their children Tonga words with interesting meanings. Here are some I wrote down along the way:
English: Agrippa, Cleopatra, Only, Obey, Fines, Modern, Favourite, Purity, Precious, Pritness (Prettiness)
Tonga: Linda (awaited precious one), Trouble, Change-of-sex (as in a girl after a number of boys or a boy after a number of girls), Same-sex (opposite of above)
So even our names carry something of culture in what is appropriate to name your child. :)
In Zambia, I had a different problem: not smiling at people's names, picked in some cases - I am sure - for how the parents liked the way the word sounded in English even if they didn't know what it meant. Or they simply name their children Tonga words with interesting meanings. Here are some I wrote down along the way:
English: Agrippa, Cleopatra, Only, Obey, Fines, Modern, Favourite, Purity, Precious, Pritness (Prettiness)
Tonga: Linda (awaited precious one), Trouble, Change-of-sex (as in a girl after a number of boys or a boy after a number of girls), Same-sex (opposite of above)
So even our names carry something of culture in what is appropriate to name your child. :)
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