rat race

On the way home after a long day of studying for block exams, two of my favorite songs from high school played back to back on the Christian radio station.  

“We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?” –“Meant to Live” by Switchfoot

“God I want to dream again

Take me where I’ve never been
I wanna go there

This time I’m not scared” –“Unbreakable” by Fireflight

Those songs fueled me in high school.  I had big dreams.  I knew that I was meant to live for so much more.  I wanted to dream again, to be taken where I’d never been.

Now here I am, somewhere in the middle of my dream, and I feel like I’ve stalled.  I have so many big ideas and plans and actions in my mind, but all I do is study.  I feel stuck in time.  It’s as if I’m in a hamster wheel that is stationary with respect to time, but I am running, running, running.  And the rest of the world moves in real time around my wheel… 

My brothers get taller, people get married, people have babies, seasons meld into each other.  And I keep running forward.  But not.

I know it’s all an illusion.  I know that I’m learning and growing.  It’s good.  Really.  But I don’t want to be running on a hamster wheel.  I want to take on the open road.  To see that my steps gain distance, not just another rotation.

I’m in an elective class called "Vulnerable Populations," and we’re talking about the marginalized in our society.  We talked last week about how dreams often exist within the minds of those in poverty.  The great American dream says that they will rise and achieve.  However, from our reading in “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, as well as other articles, it seems like the vast majority are even afraid to dream, for fear that they would only be disappointed in the end. 

This is not my problem.  I have always been a dreamer.  I’ve wanted to be so many things with my life.  I’ve had so many visions about how my existence can have a positive effect on those around me.  I have been told that I can do anything I want and be anything I want if only I put my mind to it. 

Unlike the people I am reading about, I selected a career path not because it was the only job available, not because it was the only thing I was qualified for, and not because I needed to find a job as soon as possible to pay the accumulating bills.  I didn’t even choose my career path because of the money I would make.  I chose it because I believe I have the skills that it takes.  I chose it because I’ve been told many times that if I love what I do, my job won’t seem like work at all.  I chose this path because it seems fulfilling.

So many others do not have the privilege to choose in this way.  I'm a lucky, or blessed girl

But still I feel stuck and like I’m not fulfilling my big world-changing dreams right now.

Lately I’ve had an ongoing conversation with a buddy of mine.  He’s a dreamer too.  He’s also someone who has a keen eye for the injustices in the world.  When we lived in the same town, we’d stay up late, scheming how we would change the world.  We had good ideas, too.  

Now I’m here running, running, running.  And he’s there running, running, running.  And we both feel, in a way, like we’ve not lost our momentum, but that our energy is now spent pushing the hamster wheel.

This feeling of futility isn’t new.  On more than one occasion in college, I stormed into my adviser's office and proclaimed that if today was my last day on earth, I would much rather have spent it knee deep in social justice, not wasting my time on physics homework.  I still feel like that some days.  If today was the day before the arrival of Christ, or the day before I got into a fatal car accident, would I have wanted to spend it all alone in a study room or stuck in a lecture hall?

“We were meant to live for so much more!  Have we lost ourselves?!!”  That’s what I want to scream.

But what am I meant for?

I was made for the glory of God.  I was made to be faithful to Him, to enjoy Him. 

This God, whom I am learning to enjoy, gave me the skills, the desire, and the opportunity to become a doctor.  This is not separate from the reason I was made.  This God created people as the epitome of His creation.  

I have been called to care for His most valued creation.

Last week, I met with a few friends from my Bible study in the hospital’s chaplain's office.  My heart fluttered nervously in my chest.  We were there to learn how to enter into the suffering of another, to show compassion.  We did this in the form of taking emotional and spiritual histories.  In a way, it was kind of like taking the histories that we do in every one of our patient encounters.  Only not.

I can ask a patient about their physical status.  But about their emotions and spirituality?  That stuff is messy.  But it is, nonetheless, part of a person.  And whole person healthcare involves asking about the status of the non-physical parts.

We asked questions such as, 

“How has your time in the hospital been?”

“What has been your source of strength while here?

“How has any part of your illness been scary?”

“How has your illness affected the way you see yourself?”

“How has your illness affected the way you see God?”

We went not necessarily to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with patients, although each of us would have jumped at the opportunity to do so.  We went to show the love of Christ by caring about their deepest concerns.  How fulfilling it was to hear the stories of patients!  I became a steward of their fears and anxieties.  I became an ambassador to their healthcare team on how they could be cared for more fully.  It was an honor.

Some days I feel like I am running on a hamster wheel.  Some days I feel like it’s futile, as if my dreams are dangling in front of my nose, but just beyond the wheel.   

But then I remember that my dream is to serve the vulnerable- the sick, the broken, the people who may be stuck without dreams. 

Last week at Bible study, I was frustrated because I don’t feel like I’m doing anything right now to change the world.  Through the course of discussion, one of the guys piped up and said “But you don’t have to save the world.  Jesus already did that!”  He didn't know what was weighing on my mind, nor was the conversation directly about changing the world but I felt like he was speaking directly to me.

He’s absolutely right, you know.  Jesus saved the world.  All He calls me to do is serve Him in faithfulness.

I guess studying is being faithful. 

Back to the books… :)