“See your husband’s potential.” -Melanie Summey
One truth about marriage that has been on my mind recently is how marriage is ministry. My husband is my ministry to the world. I think we tend to think more easily about children in this way—we are more apt to unconditionally and sacrificially love them, to ponder their potential, in a way we really should be doing just as much for our spouse.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how the world will change because of D, because of his work in medicine and the church and as a father, and it’s an exciting thing. It’s exciting watching him go through a period of refining what he’s about in life, where he’s headed, in his training, his visions for the future, and his preparations for fatherhood.
I think about what an influential role I play. The oft-repeated (at least by us) adage from Tim Keller is true: everything about the world can be falling apart, but if your marriage is strong, you step out into the world in strength. Everything about the world can be going well, but if your marriage is weak, you step out into the world in weakness. I see that in us: the things I say affect him; my prayers for him are powerful. It always comes back to amaze me what a difference can be made by sheer dent of my belief and support.
There is some sort of mystery and power in this, in my influence upon the way D sees himself, thinks about what he can do. Some strange access I alone have to the construction of his personhood and being. It’s a marvelous and surprising thing to see it in action, to realize how content I would be just to see the world and kingdom changed through him.
Week Eighteen
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Vision
It’s so easy to go on in life without a really clear idea of where we are heading, to lose purpose while riding the never-ending escalator of career advancement. This seems to be particularly true of medicine, because the training period is so mind-numbingly long. For the most part you’re trying to catch up on sleep, pass the next test, and well, when the time comes, apply for fellowship like everyone else.
Most of my career thus far has been on the straight-and-narrow, at first because I was obliviously self-driven, then because everyone around me seemed to be doing the same few things. Most of us go onwards without really asking ourselves: what are we here for? Where does God want me or us to be? What would my ideal life in ten years look like, and am I heading in the right direction for that?
D and I are both at that point of questioning in our lives, perhaps because he’s been disillusioned somewhat by how health care is practiced, and I’ve seen the fallacies of the high-end academic world. We both dream about a healthy home with lots of children, about integrating our medical, faith, and family lives, about traveling to places in the world that desperately need the skills we have to offer.
Rather than asking, how can we make a reasonable life out of the track we’re in? we’re asking, how can we choose our steps to best equip us for where we want to be? For the first time, I’m thinking twice before jumping through the next hoop—and I think the timing is right for that. At least it’s good to be thinking.
Week Seventeen
Most of my career thus far has been on the straight-and-narrow, at first because I was obliviously self-driven, then because everyone around me seemed to be doing the same few things. Most of us go onwards without really asking ourselves: what are we here for? Where does God want me or us to be? What would my ideal life in ten years look like, and am I heading in the right direction for that?
D and I are both at that point of questioning in our lives, perhaps because he’s been disillusioned somewhat by how health care is practiced, and I’ve seen the fallacies of the high-end academic world. We both dream about a healthy home with lots of children, about integrating our medical, faith, and family lives, about traveling to places in the world that desperately need the skills we have to offer.
Rather than asking, how can we make a reasonable life out of the track we’re in? we’re asking, how can we choose our steps to best equip us for where we want to be? For the first time, I’m thinking twice before jumping through the next hoop—and I think the timing is right for that. At least it’s good to be thinking.
Week Seventeen
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Guts and Glory
“[The] chief part of human happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved.” –Adam Smith
Life is strange. Lately it’s had an odd consistency, like a rawhide toughness I knaw through one day at a time. The questions I once pondered with ease--what’s God been trying to show me recently? what’s the purpose of this time?--I now stare at in the befuddled stupor of one simply trying to survive. I wonder if I’m being initiated by sudden immersion into the drab world of work for work’s sake. I wonder if my spare time has fallen prey to brainless entertainment and consumerism. I wonder if I’ve forgotten the something that made me ask those questions--perhaps that more than anything else creates this sensation of wandering in underwater heaviness.
I wonder if surgery is changing me. I’ve whipped out one-handed knots with my eyes closed, put in chest tubes; I’ve seen enough inguinal hernias (and a variety of male genitals) to last me for life. But I’ve become accustomed to a world that’s exacting, hierarchical, that pivots on task-geared efficiency. I’ve worn to bone-deep weariness, perhaps so much that I haven’t noticed becoming habituated to a world that doesn’t acknowledge God’s existence. That doesn’t credit physical marvels to His creative power, that constantly tries to discharge patients and faces work with grumbling. That counts on luck for good call nights rather than trust in His sovereignty. That showcases humors and moods rather than the assured peacefulness of one who is beloved.
At the end of the day, that’s what I crave. I crave being given a sense of belovedness rather than having to create it myself, through reckless self-preservation, relationships, consumerism, performance. When I have it, I carry into the hospital a sense of favor that nothing can take away. When I don’t, life acquires the gristly dreariness that wears at my day and leaves me empty at night.
I have to work at creating a world that acknowledges God, that cries out with wonder at His creation and glories with Christ in suffering, that trusts there is some purpose even when I see none. That listens. That gives thanks. That doesn’t live in fear of making mistakes or never catching up on sleep. Sometimes I just have to rest in unconditional belovedness and not try at all. Tomorrow’s my last day of surgery for this rotation. Good time to rest.
Written August 20, 2006
Life is strange. Lately it’s had an odd consistency, like a rawhide toughness I knaw through one day at a time. The questions I once pondered with ease--what’s God been trying to show me recently? what’s the purpose of this time?--I now stare at in the befuddled stupor of one simply trying to survive. I wonder if I’m being initiated by sudden immersion into the drab world of work for work’s sake. I wonder if my spare time has fallen prey to brainless entertainment and consumerism. I wonder if I’ve forgotten the something that made me ask those questions--perhaps that more than anything else creates this sensation of wandering in underwater heaviness.
I wonder if surgery is changing me. I’ve whipped out one-handed knots with my eyes closed, put in chest tubes; I’ve seen enough inguinal hernias (and a variety of male genitals) to last me for life. But I’ve become accustomed to a world that’s exacting, hierarchical, that pivots on task-geared efficiency. I’ve worn to bone-deep weariness, perhaps so much that I haven’t noticed becoming habituated to a world that doesn’t acknowledge God’s existence. That doesn’t credit physical marvels to His creative power, that constantly tries to discharge patients and faces work with grumbling. That counts on luck for good call nights rather than trust in His sovereignty. That showcases humors and moods rather than the assured peacefulness of one who is beloved.
At the end of the day, that’s what I crave. I crave being given a sense of belovedness rather than having to create it myself, through reckless self-preservation, relationships, consumerism, performance. When I have it, I carry into the hospital a sense of favor that nothing can take away. When I don’t, life acquires the gristly dreariness that wears at my day and leaves me empty at night.
I have to work at creating a world that acknowledges God, that cries out with wonder at His creation and glories with Christ in suffering, that trusts there is some purpose even when I see none. That listens. That gives thanks. That doesn’t live in fear of making mistakes or never catching up on sleep. Sometimes I just have to rest in unconditional belovedness and not try at all. Tomorrow’s my last day of surgery for this rotation. Good time to rest.
Written August 20, 2006
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
A Bothersome Experience
I had a jarring experience at work today. I found out a procedure I had prided myself on doing well, and quickly, I had actually been doing wrong all along. My attending had left and trusted me to do it on my own, only to then come back and spend precious OR time redoing it all several times.
Later tonight I kept replaying each step of the procedure in my mind. I’m not sure why it bothered me so much, more than it really seemed to bother anyone else. Maybe because this was something I had a particular reputation in my class for being confident about doing. Maybe because my particular Hopkins-cultivated fear about acting like I know something only to be wrong came to be. Maybe because my own fear about sacrificing quality for efficiency came to be. Maybe because I put too much pride and credit in being good with my hands, have put too much stock in how easily I learn procedures. Definitely because at heart I am a performance-driven, approval-seeking being who wants to be the perfect resident.
I lay in bed later thinking about this. I hadn’t realized how far I had come in my hubris. How much I am still driven by the old cycle of performance and perfection. How much more I trust myself and my abilities--my hands, my mind, my will--than I trust God. I trust my reasonings and machinations over God’s sovereignty. I trust the biology of my body over God’s control over this new life forming. I trust my own knowledge and skills over the strength and wisdom God provides. I am constantly more affirmed in myself than I am in the work God has done in me.
In a way this has always been my fundamental problem. It leaves no room for humility, for mistakes, for anything surprising to happen that is outside of my own narrow will and mind. There is always this part in me I need to confess, to let go of. The doing so carries both the freedom and joy in the returning of the wayward younger son, but also release from the justification and perfectionism of the older son. It’s something I come back to over and again.
Week Sixteen
Later tonight I kept replaying each step of the procedure in my mind. I’m not sure why it bothered me so much, more than it really seemed to bother anyone else. Maybe because this was something I had a particular reputation in my class for being confident about doing. Maybe because my particular Hopkins-cultivated fear about acting like I know something only to be wrong came to be. Maybe because my own fear about sacrificing quality for efficiency came to be. Maybe because I put too much pride and credit in being good with my hands, have put too much stock in how easily I learn procedures. Definitely because at heart I am a performance-driven, approval-seeking being who wants to be the perfect resident.
I lay in bed later thinking about this. I hadn’t realized how far I had come in my hubris. How much I am still driven by the old cycle of performance and perfection. How much more I trust myself and my abilities--my hands, my mind, my will--than I trust God. I trust my reasonings and machinations over God’s sovereignty. I trust the biology of my body over God’s control over this new life forming. I trust my own knowledge and skills over the strength and wisdom God provides. I am constantly more affirmed in myself than I am in the work God has done in me.
In a way this has always been my fundamental problem. It leaves no room for humility, for mistakes, for anything surprising to happen that is outside of my own narrow will and mind. There is always this part in me I need to confess, to let go of. The doing so carries both the freedom and joy in the returning of the wayward younger son, but also release from the justification and perfectionism of the older son. It’s something I come back to over and again.
Week Sixteen
Monday, March 9, 2009
Fashion
“Maybe it’s the effect of the depressed economy, maybe it’s the influence of elegant Michelle Obama–but restrained, ladylike fashion is fully in style. So don your gloves, pull on a polished skirt suit, or slip into a sophisticated ball gown.” –Fall Fashion Week 2009 trend, www.omiru.com
In preparation for the day when, alas, I will no longer be able to wear scrubs every day, and in celebration of my potentially feeling up to wearing more than pajamas all weekend, I am enjoying imaginary clothes shopping. This is where I look avidly at various fashion sites, aesthetically admiring things I wouldn’t dream of wearing, and dreaming about things I would instantly buy if I wasn’t saving up for diapers (and child care).
A few things I was admiring: a yellow patterned blouse under a green belted peacoat. A chunky necklace paired with a flared skirt. A sheer-sleeved teal blouse with a tweed pencil skirt. Muted green handbags, sparkly cocktail rings. Anything flowy and chiffony. Anything sold by Anthropologie. Anything Jennifer Connelly was wearing in He’s Just Not That Into You. (A few trends I completely do not understand, no offense: ankle boots, head-to-toe animal prints, capelets. Then again, I remember seeing capris for the first time in college and thinking they were ridiculous. I now own more capris than shorts.)
I find looking at maternity wear fairly depressing. Maybe I just haven’t found the right stores, but all I can see is the huge must-be-fake, thirty-pound belly strapped onto all the models that is completely ruining what would otherwise be a mediocre outfit. My sister took me to a maternity store for fun last weekend and I left vowing to wear normal clothes as long as humanly possible.
Well, it’s fun to think about all this. It’s enjoyable the same way it is looking at a good painting, a striking photograph, a well-decorated room, hearing great music. Inspiring though at the moment existing more in fantasy than anything else. I was just as glad come Monday morning to pull on the usual green scrubs and my serviceable, scruffy clogs.
Week Sixteen (no more back-posts; all are now written real-time)
In preparation for the day when, alas, I will no longer be able to wear scrubs every day, and in celebration of my potentially feeling up to wearing more than pajamas all weekend, I am enjoying imaginary clothes shopping. This is where I look avidly at various fashion sites, aesthetically admiring things I wouldn’t dream of wearing, and dreaming about things I would instantly buy if I wasn’t saving up for diapers (and child care).
A few things I was admiring: a yellow patterned blouse under a green belted peacoat. A chunky necklace paired with a flared skirt. A sheer-sleeved teal blouse with a tweed pencil skirt. Muted green handbags, sparkly cocktail rings. Anything flowy and chiffony. Anything sold by Anthropologie. Anything Jennifer Connelly was wearing in He’s Just Not That Into You. (A few trends I completely do not understand, no offense: ankle boots, head-to-toe animal prints, capelets. Then again, I remember seeing capris for the first time in college and thinking they were ridiculous. I now own more capris than shorts.)
I find looking at maternity wear fairly depressing. Maybe I just haven’t found the right stores, but all I can see is the huge must-be-fake, thirty-pound belly strapped onto all the models that is completely ruining what would otherwise be a mediocre outfit. My sister took me to a maternity store for fun last weekend and I left vowing to wear normal clothes as long as humanly possible.
Well, it’s fun to think about all this. It’s enjoyable the same way it is looking at a good painting, a striking photograph, a well-decorated room, hearing great music. Inspiring though at the moment existing more in fantasy than anything else. I was just as glad come Monday morning to pull on the usual green scrubs and my serviceable, scruffy clogs.
Week Sixteen (no more back-posts; all are now written real-time)
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Small Victories
“Mathin made dinner after the horses were tended, but Harry lingered, brushing Sungold’s mane and tail long after anything resembling a tangle still existed. For all her weariness, she was glad to care for the horse herself, glad that there was no brown man of the horse to take that pleasure away from her.” –Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword
I was brushing Chloe tonight, as she purred loud enough to power a small engine. Grooming her is enjoyable because it’s how I always fantasized grooming a horse would be: she stands in majestic stillness as the rubber tines run through her glossy, thick black coat. She has almost equine-like coloring, black with white down her nose, not to mention a frame large enough to dwarf small dogs. I hadn’t brushed her in so long that enough fur pelted off to stuff a small pillow.
I was looking at my husband a few nights ago while he slept. It’d been a long time, months, since I’d really seen him, not out of effort but spontaneous affection. He was wearing his old “Veritas Forum” shirt from the days we’d take the M3 to the Yard to listen to apologetic speakers. He was lying on his favorite pillow and curled up hugging his favorite bear, feet tucked bare against the air and blanket swaddling his middle.
This is how it’s felt waking back up to real life, like glimpses of a more and more whole world as the fog clears. I did the chores again last weekend. I didn’t shoo Winnie away from my lap, and she lay there for over an hour like the old days, head on her paws moving up and down with my breaths. I missed D at night. I turned on music. I talked to the baby.
Maybe the best way to see where you’ve been is to describe what it’s like coming back. You’re more thankful for the people who helped you along through their service or patience, for the grace that got you through. It’s easier to see a purpose in it all. There’s some element of re-self-discovery. Perhaps there’s more acceptance of how things happened the way they did. I think about some of the more difficult things in life and hope it will be like that one day. In the meanwhile, it’s little victories, little moments of insight and quiet bits of gratitude.
Week Fourteen
I was brushing Chloe tonight, as she purred loud enough to power a small engine. Grooming her is enjoyable because it’s how I always fantasized grooming a horse would be: she stands in majestic stillness as the rubber tines run through her glossy, thick black coat. She has almost equine-like coloring, black with white down her nose, not to mention a frame large enough to dwarf small dogs. I hadn’t brushed her in so long that enough fur pelted off to stuff a small pillow.
I was looking at my husband a few nights ago while he slept. It’d been a long time, months, since I’d really seen him, not out of effort but spontaneous affection. He was wearing his old “Veritas Forum” shirt from the days we’d take the M3 to the Yard to listen to apologetic speakers. He was lying on his favorite pillow and curled up hugging his favorite bear, feet tucked bare against the air and blanket swaddling his middle.
This is how it’s felt waking back up to real life, like glimpses of a more and more whole world as the fog clears. I did the chores again last weekend. I didn’t shoo Winnie away from my lap, and she lay there for over an hour like the old days, head on her paws moving up and down with my breaths. I missed D at night. I turned on music. I talked to the baby.
Maybe the best way to see where you’ve been is to describe what it’s like coming back. You’re more thankful for the people who helped you along through their service or patience, for the grace that got you through. It’s easier to see a purpose in it all. There’s some element of re-self-discovery. Perhaps there’s more acceptance of how things happened the way they did. I think about some of the more difficult things in life and hope it will be like that one day. In the meanwhile, it’s little victories, little moments of insight and quiet bits of gratitude.
Week Fourteen
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Pregnancy, or Mysterious Gastrointestinal Illness
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know!” –Job 38:4-5
I sometimes wonder if one day I will wake up and someone will inform me that instead of being pregnant, I have actually been afflicted with a strange gastrointestinal illness. As far as I can tell so far, pregnancy is indistinguishable from a mutated form of irritable bowel disease.
I have now moved beyond constant nausea to nightly gas pains. A surgery resident once told me that you could take someone’s small bowel and slice it in two right in front of them and they would feel nothing. Blow it up instead with air, and they’d double over in pain. Ironically, gas pains do feel, well, sharp and stabbing—you know what it is, you know it will pass, but by golly does it feel like someone’s at it with a butcher knife.
Makes me think on how oddly the receptors in our body are wired to interpret certain stimuli. Despite no visible inflammation, the smallest corneal abrasion can cause severe photophobia (read: most difficult patients to examine in the emergency room). Irritated eyelids can cause a feeling of gritty sand stuck in the eyes. I saw a patient last month with Charles-Bonnet syndrome: wherever she went, she saw a small girl in a red dress standing in the corner. No visible brain or ocular disease; no treatment other than reassurance that what she sees is not real. I read about a patient who saw his mother everywhere. Now that would be spooky.
Sometimes the analyst in me tries to reason things out, but for the most part I have to say: I don’t know. It’s amazing how often I say that at work. What is causing my glaucoma? Will there ever be a treatment for optic neuropathy? Will my double vision get better? Will this laser make my retinopathy go away? Why does the uterus have to be right next to the bowels and bladder? I can guess, but I don’t know.
I suppose that in the end, I don’t need to know. I just need peace, to feel understood, to know that a purpose exists. The more I study and train, the more I encounter faith. One could say the same goes for pregnancy.
Week Thirteen
I sometimes wonder if one day I will wake up and someone will inform me that instead of being pregnant, I have actually been afflicted with a strange gastrointestinal illness. As far as I can tell so far, pregnancy is indistinguishable from a mutated form of irritable bowel disease.
I have now moved beyond constant nausea to nightly gas pains. A surgery resident once told me that you could take someone’s small bowel and slice it in two right in front of them and they would feel nothing. Blow it up instead with air, and they’d double over in pain. Ironically, gas pains do feel, well, sharp and stabbing—you know what it is, you know it will pass, but by golly does it feel like someone’s at it with a butcher knife.
Makes me think on how oddly the receptors in our body are wired to interpret certain stimuli. Despite no visible inflammation, the smallest corneal abrasion can cause severe photophobia (read: most difficult patients to examine in the emergency room). Irritated eyelids can cause a feeling of gritty sand stuck in the eyes. I saw a patient last month with Charles-Bonnet syndrome: wherever she went, she saw a small girl in a red dress standing in the corner. No visible brain or ocular disease; no treatment other than reassurance that what she sees is not real. I read about a patient who saw his mother everywhere. Now that would be spooky.
Sometimes the analyst in me tries to reason things out, but for the most part I have to say: I don’t know. It’s amazing how often I say that at work. What is causing my glaucoma? Will there ever be a treatment for optic neuropathy? Will my double vision get better? Will this laser make my retinopathy go away? Why does the uterus have to be right next to the bowels and bladder? I can guess, but I don’t know.
I suppose that in the end, I don’t need to know. I just need peace, to feel understood, to know that a purpose exists. The more I study and train, the more I encounter faith. One could say the same goes for pregnancy.
Week Thirteen
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