My relationship with church has always been hot and cold. I grew up in church, where I spent years trying to reconcile my father's religion with my own. After years of mission work, I decided to get baptized. Then I came out as bisexual, which put some stress on my relationship with God and the church. And while I can honestly say that God and I are mostly aiite, my relationship with the church is still somewhat estranged. Nowadays, I treat church like confession or therapy. I go when I feel I especially need some Jesus.
I've mentioned it before, but one of the things I've been struggling with the most recently is apathy. Maybe emotions function like muscles or neurocircuitry. Use them or lose them. I spend a lot of time suppressing negative emotion because who has time to deal with that shit? If I spent time dwelling on my many crippling insecurities -- my tepid academic performance, the yawning abyss that is my love life, my Pillsbury-doughboy-meets-Michelin-Man physique, the gnawing feeling that I can never do enough, never BE enough -- I'd be a perpetual black cloud of neuroses. So I put those feelings in the industrial-grade Instant Pot that resides deep within me, to be vented on those rare, controlled occasions that are usually instigated by a Thai insurance commercial or Youtube videos of soldiers being welcomed home by their dogs.
On this particular occasion, I was driven to church by my growing conviction that I'm going to die alone. The last two dates I went on didn't pan out, which I know on a rational level isn't my fault, but I can't help but think that something is wrong with me, that at the ripe old age of 25, I have only had one real relationship...that ultimately failed rather spectacularly. That one was my fault. This feeling of inadequacy, coupled with my latest truly dismal shelf score (I passed an exam by a margin of one point) and my general unhappiness in medical school, has literally been keeping me up at night.
So I went to church. To find rest in the bosom of my Lord and Saviour. (But for real though.)
Despite my attendance being erratic at best, I do love this church. The pastor advocates for Christianity as a vehicle for social justice and his sermons makes me want to snap my fingers and stomp my feet and yell "YAAAS PREAAACH!"
Today's sermon was on Ephesians 4:17-32. In particular, one of the points that the pastor made about verses 22-24 really spoke to me:
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.He asked us to think about what was keeping us from discarding the vestiges of our old, corrupt self. He described "deceitful desires" as those things in our lives of which we tell ourselves, "If I just had ___ , I could be happy." If I just had that promotion. If I just had the new iPhone. If I just had a 260 on my Step 1. If I just had my first-choice residency. If I just had a life partner. Maybe I'd be happy.
But the Word reminds us that these desires are deceiving us into looking for happiness in earthly goods rather than in God. Settling for the temporary when He has promised us the eternal.
On my way to church, I prayed that God would speak to me and help me overcome my struggles. I'm not saying the sermon today caused all my fears and doubts to instantly evaporate, but I definitely did receive some much needed spiritual and emotional healing.
While driving away from church today, I suddenly felt, with both clarity and conviction, that I didn't want to stay in academic medicine. I thought about how unhappy I've been in medical school, or really, how unhappy I've been since education ceased being fun after high school. I've been feeling like a square peg forcing myself through a round hole, futilely sanding away at my edges to make myself fit in with my peers who just love learning and are just brimming with intellectual curiosity. Maybe it was the way I was raised. My parents were never invested in their careers. They were invested in family, in us. I don't see myself as someone who will ever glean satisfaction from prestige or recognition in my career. I don't derive happiness from my job. My job will always be something I do so that I can continue to feed my true source of happiness -- my family.
I've been torn between shooting for a prestigious residency or leaving academics for an organization like Kaiser. Half of me feels like doing a residency at Kaiser would be selling out, like I was choosing lifestyle and money at the expense of the care of my future patients. The other half of me continually questions my motives in applying for a program like UCSF. I'm miserable in medicine. Would I just be doing it to prove that I can? To shout to my peers "Hey look, I'm choosing Family Medicine and I'm just as intellectually capable as the rest of you"?
But as I made my bi-weekly pilgrimage to my Mecca (Costco), in that moment of clarity, I thought -- "Why the hell would I put myself through 3+ more years of this?" And I felt peace. And I felt liberated.
So that's where I am now....but I'm hopelessly fickle so let's see where I will be tomorrow. I can only continue to pray that God will (firmly, but gently) guide me along the path He has in store for me.
