If you have ever spent any length of time with my parents, and they start sharing any of my countless embarrassing stories, they will eventually begin to talk about my "love" of doctors. You know how some parents dream that their daughters will either marry or become a doctor? Well, my parents never did because they knew that I would never get along with one enough to marry them, let alone become one. The threat of going to a doctor of any kind is all that it takes for any illness I might have to heal instantly.
I don't hate them. I really don't. I just don't like being sick, having shots or any kind of testing… and I feel like every time that I end up in a doctor's office I also end up having some kind of insane disease. I just try to avoid going as a general rule (as if my ignoring those locations make my illness any less real).
My having that dislike is made ironic because I currently work in a Neurologist's office. Five days a week, since a few weeks after moving to Hawaii in January. Some days I work 50 bajillion hours and others not so much. But after avoiding doctors so much for the better part of my life I thought it was ridiculous that I was/am working in one of my own free will. Originally it was supposed to be a part time job, right? I started off working two days a week. I came to Hawaii to help take care of my Dad, so it really was just supposed to be something for me to do outside of my house and get some extra money to go towards my loans from school. As time has passed I have been asked to come in full time. Some how, this is where this blog comes in.
My job makes me a little crazy.
For a long time now I've just been telling myself that it is just something that I have to stick out until I can escape on the World Race in January. Sometimes it isn't even that. Sometimes I just feel like walking out and never coming back. I cannot handle it. I am not medically minded. I went to school for Bible, Youth Ministry and TESOL. I broke a line of Nurses in my family because I just… cannot.
I've told myself everything that I could to make myself feel better about working there, or not working there. There are a lot of days that I walk in thinking about how I can word my resignation–how I can escape. And recently (last night) I began complaining about how I needed to get out of there. I mean, I almost cried last night when my Mom told me that I needed to give at least a two week notice and that maybe I needed to pray about it more before I just left–that maybe God was using this place to stretch me. That same thing, the stretching, is something that another person has (cautiously) broached with me before when we talked about my job. I didn't want to hear it.
All I want is an escape.
That led me to two things. The first came through the blog post of another Racer, someone going on la Ruta as well. She works in the medical field, more directly with the patients, and she talked about the ministry that she is able to do there. How much the Lord has showed her there.
I think that I have this problem with "blooming where you are". I want to be away from the things that hurt me, the people that hurt me and the situations where those things mix. I have never thought about my job as being a place where I could minister to others through anything. Don't get me wrong, all of my co-workers know what I believe and Who has my heart, but as far as loving on the Doctor that I work for or the patients that I interact with… well, when they start yelling at me for things that I cannot control… I start wanting to shut them out. I don't think about praying for them. I don't want them to go to Hell, but in that moment I have no thoughts of introducing them to Heaven.
Then in allowing God to work in me there, well, I hate to admit this but there are more days than not that I cannot even think about God at work amidst the sea of phone calls, photocopies and angry faces. I have just laughed and said that God was using this time just to show me that there are places that He did not create me for–this being a glaring number one.
The second was from church today. Our church is doing a series of sermons about Spiritual Warfare and today's was centered around Ephesians 6:10-12.
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
We are not in a battle against flesh and blood enemies. I am not in a battle against flesh and blood enemies. The Doctor that I work for, the patients that I see and the Pharmacists are not the enemies. I cannot look at them that way. I need to look at them as the people that are "the least of these". They may not know who God is and my feelings now may have eternal consequences. My pastor commented that "We can experience God's goodness in the midst of suffering. As we journey with God as a church we have been given the charge of wrestling for the souls and hearts of others."
How much wrestling have I done recently for the souls and hearts of those that I work with, for, or before? I wish that I could say "non-stop" but that wouldn't be true.
I need to change my attitude. I need to trust my Father. I need to trust that the Lord that is going to carry me through the World Race can and will also carry me through this time. I need to be more mindful of the people that surround me and how much I allow myself to be swayed by their actions and reactions.
There has been a veil that has been placed over my eyes in this area of my life, where I cannot see how much power I have given to Satan and to my sin. I cannot have two masters and there is no contest between Who I know rules best.
I just need prayer. A lot of prayer to continue working there until I leave in January.
