Laying Down My Life

On the receding end of one of the most intense weeks of my life, I, needless to say, have a few things I've been thinking that I'd like to get into words. The last few months have felt a little like sitting in a sauna where some one kept turning the heat up a little bit at a time, culminating with taking boards.

Hitting the hospital/clinic this week was my analogous experience to jumping into a huge pile of snow after sweating in the sauna for a few hours.

It was exhilarating. It was unexpected. It was really freakin' hard. I kind of want to do it again.

I'm not much of a morning person, but we start our day around 7, which might not sound THAT early, but it is. I actually got up at 5:30am one day this week for the first time that didn't involve fun in I don't know how long. I'm used to getting lots of sleep and on my 2 call days this week I didn't get home from work until 11 or 12. You do the math. I actually did pretty okay with the sleepiness cause everything was new and exciting and REAL.

Talking about patients specifically is not ok, but I do want to share a cross-section of the kind of stuff I'm seeing. I'm working on a pediatrics rotation, so none of the patients I've seen have been 18 or older, so it's little kids and young teens I've been seeing. I've seen cases of possible pregnant teens having to weigh the moral consequences of the morning-after pill against the possibility of having a child before graduating high school. I've seen children hearing that they have a life-threatening illness and won't get to be normal kids for years to come. I've seen brand new babies with life-threatening illness that I can't confidently say whether they still live as I write this.

There's more, but it's hard to share without giving too many details. As I finally caught my breath this weekend, I started to ask myself the natural questions, like "What am I doing?" "Am I even competent to do this?" "Do I really want to spend the majority of my life indoors?" "Do I really want to live like this?"

The answer came to me on my knees in the shower this morning. As I contrasted the life that I could pursue of adventure, recreation, travel and self-indulgence with a life of a physician, I realized that the one is focused on self, while the latter is focused on others. When I was called to this profession, it was not because it would bring me fulfillment, but because it would ease the suffering of others. And through that, I would find fulfillment and peace with God.

We studied the story of the rich young ruler (Matthew 19) on a Wednesday night when I was home in Kenai. He asked what he must do to be perfect and Jesus told him to sell everything and give to the poor. While we can never life up to perfection, walking with God involves taking steps toward him, and at this point in my life, I've realized that laying down myself and trusting God is the step. I'm not doing this because it makes the most sense or because I think right now it will make my life the easiest. But I know without a doubt that I will be burdened in this life and the burden that I am going to choose will be the light one that Christ offers rather than the unbearable weight of attempting to hang on to my life and wring the last drops of joy out of every experience. I will be content in what is before me and be full because I am allowing God to fill me by walking with Him rather than attempting to forge my own road.

When I truly submit to Him, there is no room for jealousy or cynicism or regret and all the room in the world for love and joy.

Friday night found me at my cousin's house in Blackfoot, a 30 minute drive from Pocatello, watching Pierce Pettis soulfully hypnotize the audience and myself with songs of honesty as he and his guitar spoke the truth about what they have seen and heard in this life. It was one of those moments that transcends our daily experience and reminds us of those other connected times that dance on the periphery of our memory waiting to be recalled. For me, those times have been centered on and surrounded by and saturated with the presence of God and reflecting His glory back to Him with the knowledge that you are exactly in the right place, doing exactly what you've always known you were meant for. So now, I can't wait for Monday.