“Well you are such a pretty little girl. What do you want to be when you grow up?"
“A ballerina.”
“Jimmy, what do you want to be when you grow
up?"
“A fireman.”
“Wow, look at this report card. You are so smart. I bet you’ll be the president of the United States when you grow up.”
These dialogues don’t end when we stop dreaming of pink tutus and red fire engines either. I mean, isn’t that a main driving force of life, this question, “what will I do?” We teach our children their ABC’s so that they will go to high school, so that they can study hard and get good grades, so that they can get into an Ivy League school, so that they earn a degree that will assure them a fulfilling, successful, and lucrative career… right? Maybe that is a bit extremist, but I know that in my own life I often fall into the pattern of thinking ahead to “the next thing” that I will do, whether it be career, job location, education, etc.
We are a resume society thoroughly invested in impressing others so that we can get to the next step where happiness is sure to be waiting for us. I mean, be honest, would you rather say “I’m the chief cardiothoracic surgeon at John Hopkins Hospital” or “I’m the manager at Burger King down on 1st Street”?
For all the striving we do for it, here’s the funny thing about vocation – it doesn’t cause true and lasting happiness. I think you can enjoy your job. I think you can find a sense worth or fulfillment in what you do. But no matter what you do, no matter how much education you have or how many letters you have after your name, you will always have bad days when you wish you could be someone else doing something else. In college we change majors (multiple times). After college (and loans) we change jobs and whole careers because it’s not what we thought it would be.
I’m not all negativity. I think America is what it is today because people have continued to push themselves mentally and physically. It’s why we have things like the Olympics and the Nobel Peace Prize.
I’d like to tell you a story, one of the reasons I’m writing this in the first place.
The last month or so I’ve been working on getting a permanent Ugandan nursing license so that I can be legal and ethical doing my job here. In order to obtain a license I was told that I had to work in a Ugandan hospital for 8 weeks, 8-5, M – F, so that I could gain understanding of the Ugandan healthcare system and healthcare issues. After some finagling and games of “I know so-in-so,” my “sentence” was reduced to 4 weeks, for the hours of 9-3.
I now call this time “The Acculturation Project.” Here’s the truth though. I have not had a good attitude about this time in general because (1) I don’t like being told what to do, (2) I feel uncomfortable with mandatory volunteer work, and (3) I felt that I would have little to learn from the healthcare system of Uganda.
Last week was sad for me. It was week 3 of 4 and it was spent in the pediatrics ward. I’ve never had a desire to work pediatrics mostly because I love kids so much it’s hard for me to see them sick and hurting. Put in this context where I feel essentially powerless is painful.
The nurses on this ward either didn’t know what to do with me or didn’t care, so my time was largely self-directed. I made daily rounds with the doctors and I don’t think they knew what to think either as I followed them around, looked, listened, asked questions, made comments and oh-so-subtle suggestions.
Since I had so much free time I introduced myself to the patients, I made friends with the mothers (who gave me curious looks of “what is this white girl doing?”), and I invariably ended up having favorites.
The people I met and stories I heard gripped me: HIV-positive mother with HIV-positive and Tuberculosis-positive son; small baby with a likely fatal brain injury; children with burns; small baby girl with a life-threatening heart condition…These would be tragedies enough seen in the US where care and resources are almost limitless, but here, where there are no NICU’s, or ventilators, or anesthesiologists them seem needlessly cruel. I’m used to seeing bad, even horrible things after 3 years of working in a trauma ER; I’m not used to seeing bad things without having the resources needed to fix them. The sad truth is the week before, I spent some time taking pregnancy histories from women in the antenatal clinic and almost all women with previous pregnancies have had babies that died. Death is an accepted part of life.
In the midst of these stories, I met Richard. Richard is a 6-month old boy who was in the hospital for malnutrition that had reached a stage called Marasmus (meaning the child reaches a point of emaciation and wasting from protein-energy malnutrition). The first time I saw him he looked up and gave me the biggest laughing smile, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. What a personality.
Let me explain how hospitals here work; nurses are responsible for giving out medications and administering treatments, but their responsibility ends there. Families are expected to stay with the patient to attend to any patient care needs – like providing food, helping with toileting, providing and changing sheets and clothing, etc.
Richard’s mother was, essentially, absent. The other mothers told me she was probably “out getting food.” I never saw her the first few days I was there. So, I began changing his diapers, holding him, taking him around to “visit” with other kids. Pretty soon all the mothers in the ward knew Richard by name and that he was my special friend.
The last day in the ward was really difficult. Richard was supposed to be discharged, sent home with his mother who would have education and a referral for a follow-up clinic. I was angry. Richard’s mother, it turns out, is a nicely plump woman. I can only hope Richard’s future will be brighter and more full of love than his past has been.
So, how do you say goodbye? I thought about not; I thought about picking him up and walking out the door. In the end, I told him I loved him. I prayed over him, "The Lord bless you and keep you--the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you…”
Most of my thoughts during the week were consumed with thinking about going to medical school and how much more I could help these kids if I did…When the week was over though, the things of true substance did not involve life-saving medical heroics. The only thing that mattered was that I sat and talked with people, I changed diapers, I learned names and remembered them, I held babies and gave them love, I held a hand.
I’m not telling you this story so that you can think I am some sort of a saint, because I’m not. I’m telling you this because I was wrong and I need to constantly redirect my thinking.
Have I strayed too far from where I began? Here’s my point. I spend far too much time worrying about what I should accomplish and what I want to do, rather than focusing on the type of person I want to be.
“[They] don’t accomplish what they wanted to accomplish because they weren’t the people they needed to be…God is more concerned about changing you than your circumstances. It could be God wants to keep you in these difficult circumstances cause He’s changing you."
- Francis Chan
I still want to be intelligent, talented, and challenged in my career. I will still dream about things I want to do in the future. But more than that, I want to be a woman of excellence and I want my life to be characterized by love.
“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”
- Mother Teresa
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Peter 1:5-8
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