I haven't blogged in a while, so surely I MUST have SOMETHING to say... I'll just start writing and hope it comes to me...
Ok, well, first of all I got some more medical school news - wait-listed at Mount Sinai. Which is fine, since I really can't move to New York at this point in my life. Yesterday I saw Evan for the first time in about three weeks and he cried when I picked him up - perfect example for why I'm not moving to NYC! I cannot deal with my nieces and nephews not knowing me. Lord willing, there will be more babies in our family in the next few years, and I can't deal with missing out on that. This is just the first of many career-related decisions that I will make where my family has to come first.
I have to admit, though, that God is definitely using this process to humble me. For most of my life my teachers, parents, friends, family and Ben have been constantly praising me for my academic achievements, and it's difficult not to develop a bit of an ego about it. I try very hard not to let it grow, or to let other people see it, but I'm fully aware that it's there inside of me. I'm sure it rears its ugly head from time to time without me being completely aware of it though. Anyway, getting all of these interviews really got me thinking that I was a super-competitive candidate, and at this point I really was expecting to get into a lot of schools. Everyone kept telling me I would, and the evidence seemed to be pointing that way up until now. I could still technically get into the schools that wait-listed me, but I didn't think I'd be wait-listed in the first place. Medical school admissions are EXTREMELY competitive. Most schools interview less than 20% of applicants and accept about 20% of those that they interview. It's pretty intense. So why did I think I was a shoo-in? Because apparently the devil has me convinced that I'm this intellectual stud, and I need to get over myself. So here comes God to knock me off my high-horse... Hopkins? "NO." Ok, they're #2 in the country... I can handle being rejected there. UVA and Mount Sinai? "Ummm, maybe. We'll see if the better candidates accept our offers first and then we'll let you know." Ouch. They're tied for #23 in the country. I kinda thought I could hack it at that level. Maryland? "We'll take you!" Great! Buuuut they're #43. No huge accomplishment there (this is my ego talking, not how I really feel at the end of the day). Drexel? "Sure!" Yeah but they're not even ranked. Great. This has been my inner thought process, unfortunately. It's pretty pitiful actually, and I'm glad that God has used this situation to make me more aware of how pitiful it really is! At the end of the day, these people who ARE doctors and know how serious this is looked at me and said "Yeah. I think we can trust her with people's lives. Let's give her a shot." Holy CRAP! Seriously? ME?!?! Sure, I've gotten good grades and participated in a few clubs and done some biomedical research, but does that REALLY qualify me for that kind of trust and confidence? It's truly a gift - an incredible opportunity and an ENORMOUS responsibility - and here I sit disappointed that "better" schools didn't accept me. Even being wait-listed at a school like Mount Sinai is an incredible honor. And to be ACCEPTED anywhere is simply nothing less than a miracle and a gift from God. What is WRONG with me?!?!
So, all that having been said, I'm feeling pretty excited about Maryland and preparing myself to be a Terp :) I still have an interview at Georgetown, this coming Wednesday actually, so I'm keeping that one in the running as well. It's a Jesuit school, which I think has the potential to be a great fit for me. They really focus on patient care and caring for the WHOLE patient - mind, body and spirit - which is really what I'm about, when I consider why I want to be a doctor and what motivates me to care for people. It would be great to learn medicine in an environment where the spiritual aspect isn't ignored and minimized, and where MAYBE there's still some acknowledgement of our Creator playing a role in people's lives. At schools that are very research-focused and heavily into evidence-based medicine and basic science (which are all important things), the ideas of God and spiritualilty tend to be scoffed at not only as personal choices, but as elements of patient care. I can certainly learn on my own how to blend my spirituality with my medical practice, and I'm sure that even at completely secular institutions I'd find mentors that are spiritual and can help to guide me in that - I've already met several just in my interviews. But I'm certainly considering the possibility that Georgetown could be the place that God wants me to be. So we shall see. I feel like the fact that I'm interviewing so late there could mean that I don't have a GREAT shot at being accepted, but who knows. It's in God's hands. What a great feeling :)
Speaking of God's hands, we went to a marriage seminar this weekend, given by Dr. Gary Thomas. He's a world-reknowned writer on the subject of Christian Marriage - I've actually been reading one of his books recently called "Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands", which has some great insights into the male perspective on the marriage relationship, motivating your husband, and the blessing that you can be to your husband by focusing on becoming a strong, godly woman. After the seminar I also bought his most popular book "Sacred Marriage" and the weekly devotional that goes along with it. My mom and Tim do that devotional, as do my Pastor and his wife, and they all rave about it. Dr. Thomas really was a GREAT speaker - I wish every married person I know could have been there. He really brought things into perspective for me on so many issues, and I hope it's going to make me appreciate Ben and our marriage more deeply and pour more of myself into our marriage with even more enthusiasm and energy than I had previously thought. It was awesome :) I can't say enough about this period of preparation that we're going through - it's been so wonderful and inspiring and reassuring for us and we've learned SO MUCH. Having been through this, I can definitely see myself getting into marriage ministries in the future as I search for ways to serve the Lord in our church (wherever that ends up being), because I already feel so passionate about people getting adequate preparation for marriage. It's not that I think that people who didn't take a class or something are doomed. It's just been SO helpful to us and I think we're going into this with much healthier, more realistic expectations than we might have had previously. I don't think we even realized that we were coming into it with any well-defined expectations at all, but they were certainly lurking there in the back of our minds. As Dr. Thomas says, "What if marriage is designed more to make you holy than to make you happy?" That's really the essence of unrealistic expectations in this country. We expect marriage - finding our "soulmate" - to make us happy. When we aren't blissfully happy all the time, or we even fall into a deep rut where the feelings aren't there or our spouses are driving us crazy - we assume that we must have married the "wrong" person (otherwise we'd be happier!), and the divorce rate rises to 50%. If marriage was designed by God to shape us and refine us toward the image of Christ, and to prepare us for the challenges that God has in store for us in fulfilling each of our purposes in life, then we should EXPECT it to be difficult. That's Gary Thomas's core message, in a nutshell. Anyway, it was great :)
Tonight, I'm making a thanks-for-helping-with-our-wedding dinner for our parents. I think I'm making a cheese fondue, salad, and a shrimp & pasta dish. I've never cooked for this many people before, so it should be interesting...
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