Lovestruck, it's like the entire world no longer exists. Time passes in a flash. My heartbeat quickens, my eyes glow and all my senses are at once heightened, awakened. My skin breaks out into goosepimples but something burns inside with a sparkling, playful fire. It is quiet. Sometimes, I hear music in the background.
People shuffle in and out, at twice the pace of the rhythimic background beeps of the machinery, purposefully, precisely. Behind plain white masks and clad in paper-thin armour, a certain tension hangs in the air, as the soldiers prepare their artillary and the captain psyches himself for battle. The old world no longer exists. In this new world, new rules exist, immutable laws must be kept, at all costs- for lives are at stake. I change into the dress code of this new order and shiver in that cold, cold place, watching the best captains make cheerful banter with ease over the repair of a bleeding gut, a stubborn tumor waiting to be dug out with gloved hands, or a spewing blood vessel, with still a certain seriousness running like an undercurrent behind every word.
Scalpel, please. Diathermy. Retractor. Lagenbeck. One more suture, please.
My bloody hands are gripping the tumor, holding it firmly back because the captain says, "Your hands are nice and small. Hold this tightly while I try and manouvre this." My eyes watch his careful, meticulous movements, his cutting, slicing and stitching. It's that funny fluttery feeling in my heart again, which I try to suppress. It's just an infatuation, it'll pass. But it's a Saturday, nine hours pass in what seems like five minutes and I find myself -still- there. I am doing superficial stitches, supervised, and the captain says, "Not bad."
Maybe it's grand notion of saving lives, or the efficient, no-nonsense way problems are excised and solved in that room; Maybe it's way I like to work with my hands, or the way I see the metallic surgical instruments arranged like a painter's watercolor set waiting to be used by an Artist for his masterpiece; Maybe it's the way how drab everybody looks in that room on the outside but only your inside skills count for anything, and having that privileged awe of looking into a person's insides, beautifully and wonderfully made by a Creator...
... that enchants me so much. And I find myself at once alive, with a deep effervescent passion sparkling with excitement within me. That feeling of being in love, totally enamoured, consumed, excited... puts me but at ease only with God.
A missionary surgeon came to our university to meet a small group of us today. He came to share with us his experiences serving for twenty-three years in a developing country, together with his wife and six children. As usual, as when I hear any of their stories first-hand, tears welled behind my eyes as I felt something deep inside and outside calling, calling out to me.
Purpose. Love. God. The only things worth living for. The only things one makes sacrifices for. The only things which can ignite in your heart things that can sometimes be so fierce, stinging and zealous that it scares you.
Surgery. Missions. Poor people. Twenty-three years in a poor man's land with his wife and six children. He travelled half-way around the world, underwent all that rigorous, grating training to be a surgeon who could be earning maybe hundreds of thousands a year so he could be paid an allowance from his church, bring up his children in a developing nation, live a frugal life to serve the needy, love the poor.
And as that burning feeling fiercely called out to me again, called me closer, something deep and precious inside gushed out of me- and while I felt the luckiest, most blessed person in the world- to have found a calling, a sense of purpose, a love for a truth- that brought me closer to the heart of God, a deep melancholia brewed underneath, too.
It scared me. It scares me to know I love what I'm studying, that I love surgery this much. (Why can't I be in love with an easier specialty? The Surgery Specialty- it means interminably, inhumanly long hours, rigorous training and tight schedules. Very, very few women are surgeons because of the time-consuming nature of it. Most do not marry.) It scares me to know that I love the idea of missions, surgical missions, that I love God this much.
It makes me cry and laugh to think about the things I love. Cry, because of things I have to and may have to give up. Laugh, because it'll be all worth it in the end. It must be.
Till today, I have not met a single female medical missionary who is married with a family serving the poor long-term in the field. I know no one who does, and that discourages me. The full-time medical missionaries I know serving the needy are all either men with families (their wives aren't doctors and support them at home or in a less stressful ministry) or single women doctors.
Who can share with me the struggles of a female medical missionary serving the poor and her husband and children? Is it even possible? Is there a reason why these women aren't married? The men find them too busy, too self-sufficient? Or have these women accepted singleness as a sacrifice? Does what I love- surgery and missions- take me away from what I would love to have- a family? Is this what they meant when they called such a calling a sacrifice? Is it one or the other? Why do I love what is so difficult?
Hence the tears. No one has the answers to my question.
The burning desire for both remains. Hence the fear- of one taking away the other. And yet, the fierce fire of the Calling burns more furiously still. It calls and calls, calls and calls. It scares me to know it is all I think about- every single day- that it brings me so much purpose, joy and fulfillment to walk in this passionate pursuit to what I believe God has called me to.
And yet, in spite of all my questions and doubts, in spite of the seasons of moodiness regarding this which coincide terribly with my hormonal cycles, I don't know why I feel such an inexplicable peace, still. A few months ago, I felt God speak to me- that He had it all covered for me. That His calling was real and good, and that there was someone who would find me, too. Someone with the same calling, and things would fit together. I can't quite explain it.
But the peace does elude me time to time. My fears are real, and they bring me real moments of discouragement and sadness as I look at the unblazed path before me. But I hold on to the truth that God has a good plan, just waiting to unfold, and now is merely the lull between the Promise made and Promise fulfilled.
The missionary surgeon said today, "God will weave what you love into His plan."
So I'm going to walk in faith, even if there are tears in my eyes. I'll have to. I must. I will. In spite of all my questions, worries, fears and doubts, in spite of all my insecurities, uncertainties and pains, I'll have to learn to listen to what I love, the cry of my heart, the heart God weaved and stitched together with His own hands. Learn to be scared of what my heart loves, but, in spite of the fear, love it harder, more fiercely still...
... even with tears in my eyes. Even in the face of sacrifice.
Because I'll just have to trust, that God made my heart, the heart which loves missions and surgery, He loves me so much He may just blaze a new trail for me, and He has a plan- He has a plan for me.
" 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD,
'plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future.' "
-Jeremiah 29:11
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