Senior Reflections (Part 5) -Final

Skipping ahead to Uganda. I wrote more but, well, whatever.

My first day working in the rural hospital in Kamuli, I saw childbirths. I had been so trained as a good Christian to look away when I saw anything inappropriate on women, so it took some getting used to. These pregnant women would sit completely naked on a metal table to give birth. That is when I learned something that is, of course, common sense, but was strange to really take in. Women are all one thing. The zones that had been so forbidden to see were simply a part of the whole. Breasts, vagina, everything, they were a person.

Unfortunately, what that mission included far too little of was ministry. I felt useless for a month, and that combined with the desire to change the poor state of healthcare there gave me a real reason to become a doctor. With that in mind, I began my best academic year to date (grades may argue, but it was). I also preached the sermon that God had been teaching me since the summer before my sophomore year in college, that righteousness comes from believing in God’s promises even in the midst of everyone else’s (and a fair amount of your own) disbelief. In my case, this pertained particularly to my becoming a doctor. As often happens in a time when I am very connected with God, it was easier to give into temptation because I thought of myself as being above it. So when I disobeyed what God said to do shortly afterwards, I felt awful, and I missed out on more opportunities to serve ‘cause being ‘dupid is a good way to distance yourself from God’s voice.

From then, I kinda just read those Wheel of Time books. I cut out getting coffee with friends in my spare time and either studied, read books, or did something else to lose my mind and avoid thinking. Ironically, this strategy to do better in school and making myself unlike my brothers made me act similarly to my brothers and push away from the very reason why I was trying to do well in school in the first place.

And now I’m home. Now, my mom uses a vacuum cleaner on wood and tile and looks to me for validation when she cleans. I realized that I was pretty much taught how to clean by my dad, and my mom had apparently acquired few of these skills. My dad gets lonely a lot. My brothers get high a lot. My youngest sister won’t slow down enough to learn or be corrected or stop doing drugs, and my other sister is only just now about to finally move out and have her chance to grow up away from family. I was annoyed at first that I was considered to be the “good kid”, but now I understand it. I have grown a lot, and most of it hasn’t been in a bad direction. I’m the only one in my family that consistently works out and eats at least semi-well, and I’m willing to work hard at whatever job comes my way, which is impressing my dad a lot. I’m acting the way he always described that we should act. My mom is still emotionally unstable, and I’m having to assure her that she’s doing fine. And I’m realizing that my parents are going to ask me for advice again, and they will listen. I now have this odd mantle from before college on my shoulders, brought back by familiarity, that I have to balance with social habits like drinking. I cannot be who I was before by any means. But some degree of it is going to stay with me, too.

Senior Reflections (Part 4)

RECAP TIME. The last four years of college have been a big change.

I started out with thinking I was already pretty fully adjusted. Then I went through transition. Then my parents got divorced in the summer after my freshman year, making the next semester feel like an additional transition time. That summer and even the spring leading up to it, I had to act as a counselor, giving advice to my parents. After all, I was filled with the gift of Wisdom and spewed it like wildfire before I left. However, THIS IS NOTHING A CHILD EVER WANTS TO BE FOR THEIR PARENTS. My mom told me a few details of their sex life (once again, nothing I ever wanted to hear about). My dad became drunk in front of the children for the first time in my memory. I was sworn to secrecy on some things by either parent. These and other things (which I may have blocked out of my mind) were SOOOOO contrary to everything I had been taught up to this point.

That summer was also when my family (including divorced parents) went on what my mom called their “Divorcimoon” to Italy. There, in one of the most romantic places in the world, St. Mark’s Square, in Venice, my mom talked to the children (except Alexandra, who was kept out of the loop a lot) about our feelings on the divorce. My oldest brother voiced that he wondered why it hadn’t happened sooner. I couldn’t even speak. Once again, it went against EVERYTHING I had ever been taught. Divorce is birthed through sin. That’s how it happens. To this day, my mom claims immense relief over it, but I saw her and my dad. Any relief from either was remarkably temporary, and it cost us whatever stability there was in the family. Four years later, the family has been trashed from it. In order to go through with divorce, my mom changed her mindset from selflessly raising the children to concentrating on herself. That may have been well and good except that two of the children weren’t finished being raised (and raising kids was what kept her stable in a lot of ways, ‘cause your own problems aren’t as big when you have bigger ones to look at). The youngest sister still had two years of high school left (which, by the way, were her very worst, combined with teenage rebellion phase). My dad has since made bad investments and we are financially in the gutter. All siblings except the oldest sister smoke marijuana regularly, youngest sister is crazy and can’t hold a job or stay in school. Oldest brother lives for karaoke, video games, and gambling. Other brother has destroyed his reliability with anyone. He has a job but works the very minimal amount, and also won’t stay in school. My mom has a committed boyfriend (probably soon-to-be-husband), but SURPRISE! His humor is VERY similar to my dad’s, especially when he becomes critical of how disorganized my mom is. And she is only more emotionally fragile after everything. Basically, she’s trapping herself into a similar problem, and once again, she won’t know how to solve it.

Fortunately, I also met some of my best friends from school during that semester. That Christmas (2010), I learned to avoid blaming either of my parents, and instead saw them as people who were simply struggling with the consequences of their sinful actions, my dad’s being a longstanding ordeal of doing little to change his ways despite marital counseling, and my mom’s being the part of taking actions over her frustrations (though she certainly contributed to marital trouble).

(I'm tired of writing for now.)

Senior Reflections (Part 3)

Though I haven't been the most clever this last semester, there is one thing that I think I've gained. In the past, I have thought of myself as unrelatable. My level of purity was such that I felt distant from people. People would describe their problems and I could not understand, or I simply judged them. I didn't judge intentionally; rather, I saw it as a thing outside of God's will and condemned it as such in my mind, feeling utterly removed from such a genre of actions (sounds just a TAD pretentious, eh?). Now, I've found that when my friends confide their sins to me, I don't judge at all. I have been there. I've been a fool and ignored The Lord. And I know what a fool I am if I continue to ignore God, so I know to redirect the situation.

Frequently being stupid this last semester was a downer, but at the same time, I feel like I can empathize on a whole new level. It's almost as if I'm a real person.

People are people.

Senior Reflections (Part 2)

Finals are thoroughly over. Family came and left, dropping behind a pretty penny for me to potentially visit Europe with next year. Yesterday, I began taking diagnostic tests to assess my current abilities for the MCAT, and began relearning chemistry today, though many fundamental concepts are being learned for the first time.

So naturally, what is really on my mind comes from my study breaks. These subjects ranged from potential karaoke songs, times and places to travel during the year, and songs that bring back memories of mission trips. The latter in particular has been hitting me. I listened to Phil Wickham (his self-titled album and Cannons) for the first time while on my first mission trip to Kenya, which is when I began to define why I want to do what I want to do beyond the simple desire to obey God.

One song in particular, my "missionary song", is "Mystery." It essentially lays out an approach to God that puts you right where you need to be.
"Here in the quiet, speak to me now. My ears are open to your gentle sweet whispering. Break down the doors; come inside. Shine down your bright light. I need a lamp for my feet. Yeah, I need a lamp for my feet."
And the chorus "'Cause I wanna hear the thunder of all you are, to be captured inside the wonder of all you are. I wanna live, and I wanna breathe, to search out your heart and all of your mystery."
And a little later "Your glory burns in the stars. Shine down your light, let it burn in my heart. Bring me to glory; bring me to You. Lord, it's your heart that I will hold onto."

I've been struggling with finding where my standards are at. I know that in the company of a very few trusted friends, I can usually find them again, but left on my own, just doing school, I feel separated from it all and I lose sight of it. What's worse, I hold onto that separation, because with the standards out of sight, I no longer feel accountable to those standards, and can focus on the immediate without regard to how anything beyond myself will be affected. This is foolish reasoning and forces one into becoming simple-minded, which, according to Proverbs, sucks balls.

The point is simply that this song, which I hadn't listened to for a long while, hit me hard. Not because it's particularly convicting (listen to "Where Is The Difference" by Matt Papa for that), but rather because it puts me back where it begins for any believer. Asking God to speak to you and being open to it. Letting Him come in and work on you, allowing Him to improve you and show you where your standards truly are. Because your standards never lower below the point of holiness in Christ; you simply forget where they are.

And the chorus and bridge talk about the after-effects of all of it. You get to know God? So what? Well, it's not just about becoming a better person. To some extent, you can do that without Christ. However, hearing and breathing and being captured within the wonder that is Jesus and the mystery that He is, that can only be done by seeking out His heart. And as you glorify Him, He glorifies you, and your experience of tasting and seeing His goodness exceeds whatever He has previously given to you.

Senior Reflections (Part 1)

As I'm enjoying my first days off in forever, I'm realizing/remembering the problems that I've been creeping into. See, I've essentially kinda made the decision (slowly, not all at once) to work hard at school to become a doctor for the sake of helping people, while being willing to sacrifice anything and everything to get there. This includes personal development. And what do I do when I start to feel bad about how I am as a person, when I begin to notice this lack of personal development? I work out or take a nap or drink or do something that I know will stave off that feeling.

This brought a question to surface within me. "Is it worth it to sacrifice myself, this personality that has always been so magnetic and energizing that everyone loves, for the sake of helping people in the future?" I mean, I've always been of the opinion that I'd be willing to sacrifice my life for anyone, but this seems so much worse. This is just taking the part of me that's of great worth and starving it.

I feel like I can't have my cake and eat it too, at least not within this educational system. Maybe during this gap year, I'll get back on track and figure out how to make time for reflection and growth without it feeling like a distraction from what I should be doing.