Rejections and Questions...

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
- Emily Dickinson -


I received a rejection email from Creighton today. Super disappointing. As time has gone on, it was a school I was really looking forward to having a chance at attending. They place a big emphasis on a relationship with God as part of your medical education and have a heart for service. I love the above poem by Emily Dickinson. For me it encompasses seeking to live a life of significance while understand that often the smallest things we do in the service of others are significant. I have been wondering lately if my quest to become a doctor is in search of significance or actual calling. I have always wanted to be in a caring oriented profession and the concept of enabling people to live healthy full lives to me mirrored what Jesus did in physically healing so that they could be healed emotionally, mentally or spiritually etc and go on whatever journey lay ahead for them. At any rate there are lots of factors into why I have sought medical school - but I wonder more and more often am I doing it for me? For the honor and prestige? For the significance? Is it really the place God is calling me? A wise man once told me that being a doctor was a set of skills he used in the service of God, but his calling was to be a husband to his wife, a father to his children and a man of God within the church.

One of the reasons I felt the freedom to move back to Oregon was I began to realize that God's ultimate will for my life was to love him, to be in relationship with him and to love other people. The rest are details he will work out in me and through me along the way. That's easier said than done. I still long for a niche or a place to call my own. And who knows. Perhaps God will open doors in another direction or at another medical school.

Today holds elements of disappointment, but there are still elements of Joy. Its beautifully sunny outside. My sister and best friend is sitting next to me. I had dinner with my family yesterday and almost finished an entire books and three of my best friends in the entire world are coming to visit tomorrow.

The words of lamentation have continually reverberated with my lately - in relation to Lent, to disappointing situations and to events in my life where God has turned the ugly and hurtful to beauty and healing ( as he did in Esther) -

You give...
BEAUTY for ASHES
STRENGTH for FEAR
GLADNESS for MOURNING
PEACE for DESPAIR.

May your days hold both rain and sunshine so you can see the beauty in each...

Love to all of you