The Night Before

Here I am. It's the night before the USMLE Step 1 exam. I'm a five-minute drive away from the testing center at an odd mix of nice and, umm, danky hotel near a highway in Tulsa. The sounds of cars on the highway overlay the hum of the mini fridge. I studied until 4 PM today, which is a no-no, but I could not resist. Fortunately, my mind shut down. So did my body, really. So I ended up getting a ten minute chair massage at the mall, which I had assumed would never be worth it, but it did more for me at this point than any hour-long massage I have had on a beach. Then I watched the Kingsman sequel (I did not care for it, perhaps 'cause I was not drinking?). So that was my fairly successful attempt at relaxation. I had not taken that much time out from studying since last Tuesday (tonight is Wednesday).

Then I did what I always do before a medical exam that will change my life: I read Romans 4 and the beginning of Romans 5. It really is poorly divided at that portion. Hope against hope is the usual section that I focus upon, but the suffering particularly caught my eye this time. Perhaps because of three years of fear, anxiety, and learning with decreasing thoughts of the things and people that I once cared greatly for, not to mention an increasing distrust of the Church in America as it stands (which is what I had hoped to reconnect to until I felt as if the Holy Spirit was warning me against it during the election)... in any case, I felt a suffering during this time that has changed me, beaten me down, deprived me of whatever it is that I feel is the best of me. But that passage does not just say to rejoice in suffering; it gives a reason. Suffering produces perseverance. Because of course, making it out the other side of suffering is what defines perseverance. And the passage does not stop there. Perseverance produces character. Just as a favorite book is made to suffer through creases and dog ears and wrinkles, thus gaining character, so our character is revealed by the sufferings through which we persevere.

And that character is what produces hope. It does so for the same reason that you originally agreed to go through this suffering in the first place: the love of God, which has been freely poured into our hearts. That sounds like a dumb answer to a lengthy riddle made up of suffering, but the guarantee is given at the end that this hope, due to its safeguard with the love of God, does not disappoint. We have an assurance that the suffering, perseverance, character, and hope are all sustained through a love that prevents disappointment at the end of the journey. It becomes worthwhile.

So in the midst of my exhaustion and insecurities, I have this love of God onto which I can hold. The God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. The God who does not merely bend possibility, but rather creates it anew.

Though I may foolishly lose sight of it, the God I continue to believe in really does have the power to weave reality as He sees fit. So I pray that I may place my hope in this speaker of worlds, this literal life maker, rather than what I have or have not managed to do to prepare.

Less Than A Week

I have been meaning to write again, but I have so much to do in so little time that it felt crazy to write a blog (especially since I have a habit of making these things too long when I am appropriately expressive). The Step 1 exam, the one that decides the course of a great many things in my life, is coming this Thursday. Today is Saturday.

Rather than think of test day, which I can hardly imagine, I instead motivate myself by thinking of the month after test day, when I am awaiting test scores. At around 6 AM on a Wednesday, I will apparently receive an email to let me know that my scores are available. Then I, with heart leaping from my body, will hurriedly scramble to figure out my login info and check the website for the score. Those brief anxious moments are what I focus on right now (and the days leading up to them).

My dad called to remind me of a lesson that he noted just before taking his CPA exam. This, like every matter of importance in our lives, is The Lord's battle. It is not my own. I attempt to do everything on my part to make sure that we do well on test day, but He is the one upon whom I will have to lean in the deciding moments. When I have narrowed a question down to two answers, it has very little to do with my knowledge and much to do with The Lord's presence in every moment.

Just as in the past, before I failed a class, I am trying not to think of the possibility of failure, of how crushing that would be. An extra month or two of studying will likely do the trick, but it is the social withdraw that I fear (and of course my standing as a student as I attempt to find rotations and residencies). There is a girl that I like, and from my very limited understanding of dating, I think that I will have to invest time in her already busy world in order to discover who she is and offer her the same opportunity for me. When I am studying, the outside world stays outside. I obtain bacne because I lean back in a chair all day. I just want a little respite from all this.

God, please be with me. Help me to study you and your world and the science you cultivated, and give me the knowledge and discernment to choose correct answers in the midst of baffling questions.

Also God, should I try to date her? Even though I will soon have to move for clinical rotations if all goes well? Right, right, focus.

Two Weeks

Two weeks from today, I take an exam that will do much to determine the course of both my short- and long-term career. I am hitting the books hard and struggling to avoid burnout. I am alternating heavy days and light, with heavy days being powered first by coffee and then by adderall during the late afternoon slump, and both days ending with drinking.

The choice to live in this particular place and point in time are turning out to be as critical as I assumed. When I need a study break, it is a quick walk to find people with whom to converse at the nearby bar patio. I will also be on a podcast this weekend and have a showing of my movie at a friend's house.

It is amazing how this study mode can kick in merely on the basis of willpower. I have lacked in it until this test day grew so close, but after a friend called me to tell me about his testing experience last week, the ability to ignore my twitter feed arose within me. Failing this test would be very bad. In the face of that, I must study hard. And smart.

In the midst of this, I am also planning that trip to NYC. Westerly destinations have been phased out for various reasons. Nashville, DC, NYC, Niagara Falls/Toronto, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City are the ones on the list now. And, impressively, I have places to stay in all of those cities for most of the dates (though NYC is proving to be a little difficult in that regard).