The Heart of a Servant

Back when I was beginning the application process for medical school, I was forced (for the first time) to put some real thought and consideration into the true motivations beneath my desire to become a doctor. Partially for my own benefit, and partially because I had to write essays on the topic :) There are a zillion superficial reasons for wanting to become a doctor. It seems quite glamorous on TV, and even when you eliminate some of that glamor from your own perception of the career, just to make sure you're being realistic, there's still plenty of glamor left to make it an attractive option. Who doesn't think it would be great to save lives? Who doesn't think it would be cool to know and understand so much about the human body and be able to fix its problems? Who doesn't think that being a doctor is an essential and incredibly important service that people really appreciate? Who hasn't heard some mother encourage her daughter to marry a doctor or a lawyer? It carries a lot of prestige and earning potential, and it just seems like a FUN job to have, you know?

These are the cookie-cutter reasons for wanting to become a doctor that EVERY med school applicant knows he or she must avoid, like the plague. In considering my own motivations, I discovered something about myself for the first time - something that God has been continually working on in my life ever since (and probably before, too, I just wasn't so aware of it then). I really do feel motivated by service. At first, I wrote that because it sounded good. But the more I worked through those essays and prepared for those interview questions, the more real that became for me. To be a doctor is to be a public servant. While doctors may be much better compensated for their service than many other types of public servants, it's still public service. In fact, being a doctor requires a lot of extra sacrifice - sacrifices that, depending on who you are, may not really be fairly compensated for, despite the size of the paycheck. I don't say all this to pump up myself and my career choice, nor do I mean to say that this is the only career that makes these sorts of demands on a person. I'm just trying to point out something that I myself never really understood about this career until it became more of a reality for me. It's NOT all that glamorous, it takes a LONG time and an ENORMOUS financial investment to achieve it, it has the potential to be incredibly frustrating and disheartening, it requires one to work demanding hours often unexpectedly, it carries with it an immense responsibility and an endless series of exhaustingly intimate relationships... being a doctor requires that a person give A LOT of his or herself. This is often at the expense of his or her family and personal relationships, not to mention his or her own sanity and well-being. And to be GOOD at it - to create a temporary relationship that's deep and intimate enough to truly win a patient's confidence and trust, and deep enough to offer real comfort and reassurance in a time of crisis - that requires not only technical and social skill, but a willingness to open oneself up to that sort of relationship, with total strangers, over and over again until it seems like there's no empathy or compassion left to give out.

That's the kind of doctor I want to be. I want to be the kind of doctor that is capable of giving that much of herself to total strangers. I want to be technically skilled too, of course, but my own personal career philosophy places an incredible amount of importance on those personal relationships. If I can really develop that skill, I can really make an impact on people's lives. If they trust my medical opinion, maybe they'll trust my faith too. If they buy into the idea that I truly care about them and want to see them get better (or get off the streets or stop using drugs), maybe they'll start caring more about themselves. It's these small ways of helping people who really need a little help that motivate me. I try not to let myself be naive or get too many grand ideas in my head about how much of a difference I'm going to make - I just want to make a small difference for a few people. I think that desire comes from God. I think that God has gifted me with the abilities and opportunities that I needed to get here, and that He made me with this desire buried inside me, and that He's now working on cultivating a servant's spirit in me. I didn't always feel like "serving". I always hated community service requirements, never thought I had the time or the energy to go out of my way to help other people... up until recently I've been a very selfish person without even realizing it (not that I'm not still a selfish person, I just realize it now). But I really feel as if God has been working on that part of me lately, in preparation for the career I'm about to take on.

"How so?" you might ask...

• Ben's dad. I had a VERY hard time taking on an attitude of service toward Ben's dad. I still do sometimes. I felt as though he hadn't done much of anything for his kids and so he didn't deserve much of anything from them, especially when it involved going out of their way and making huge sacrifices. I'll be honest - I resented the situation a lot. Mostly, I resented Ben having to put his Dad's needs above mine. For most of our relationship (all but the past 5 or 6 months, basically), his Dad's needs weren't even a part of the picture - they never entered the equation. Suddenly, I couldn't be #1 all the time anymore. It sucked. Like I said, SELFISH PERSON. But it's getting easier, and God is teaching me SO much through this situation. He's shown me, often in ugly ways, how selfish I'm capable of being. He's shown me how rewarding it can be to completely give up what I want in order to make life easier on Ben or one of his sisters, or just to do something specifically FOR his dad. It's been quite the blessing in disguise.
  

• My job. My job isn't bad as jobs go. It pays pretty well for where I am in life, I get a lot of nice federal government benefits, my health insurance is kick-ass, I have a ton of flexibility with my hours and time off... but I don't enjoy it. It's been a long time since I enjoyed it. I commute an hour and a half each way, I spend the day doing a lot of things really irritate me, I DON'T want to go to work when I get up in the morning, sometimes the people I work closely with don't seem to appreciate me very much... but it's those very people who I'm here for. I've already gotten into medical school - I'm moving on as of July 31st and I don't have to accomplish anything else while I'm here. I work for people who ARE trying to accomplish something in order to further their careers. They have a defined set of goals that they have to achieve before they can move on. God is really showing me here lately that I need to focus on serving their needs despite my own issues - that that's why I'm here in this job.

• My struggle with staying at home versus becoming a doctor. This one is kind of cyclical. All that I've been learning about adopting a servant's attitude makes me feel like God is preparing me for a career as a doctor, while at the same time, I am uncovering new insights on servanthood as I consider this struggle that I'm having. While discussing the topic with Em last night, it occurred to me that if I stay at home I'm certainly being a servant, but in a way, it's my heart's own selfish way of serving - I get to serve the people I love in my own little bubble. Let me qualify this by saying that I DO NOT think that stay-at-home moms are selfish - what I'm saying is that I think it WOULD be selfish of me to stay at home under the guise of serving my family when what God is REALLY calling me to is serving the community at large as a doctor. The fact that I feel this pang of selfishness when I consider staying at home makes me feel like God really IS calling me to be a doctor. Many other people would consider pursuing a career to be the more selfish route, but that doesn't really strike a chord with me. That's just not the sentiment that God is laying on my heart these days.

• My upcoming marriage. It's interesting to me that in all of the preparation we've been trying to do for our marriage, we've consistently been directed toward messages of servanthood. From our marriage class, to the seminar we went to, to the books I've read - every resource that I've been pointed to during this time has been squarely focused on finding success and fulfillment in marriage through serving your spouse. As a result of all that, I'm really beginning to view marriage through that lens. It's becoming a part of my general outlook and perspective on marriage, and strange as it may sound, it's what I look forward to the most about marrying Ben. I'm just really excited to find new ways to serve him. I know that sounds crazy - at least putting it in those terms sounds a little crazy - but it's true. And not in a newly-wed, lovey-dovey sort of way, exactly - I just look forward to being able to spend my life making his life better. I don't know. It's just how I feel.

• My own personal struggles with faith and death. I won't go too far into this one, but suffice it to say that I have several close family members who don't know the Lord, the concept of eternity terrifies me (even eternity in Heaven), the concept of death still terrifies me, and especially lately, I've spent a lot of time crying about these fears and how those fears translate to my unsaved relatives. By "terrifies me", I mean I literally come to the brink of panic attacks if I allow myself to think about them for too long. It's bad. It often digresses into me wondering what life is really for, and why we're really here, and what difference it really makes whether we live or die. I assume that when my unsaved relatives ask these questions of themselves, it hurts them and scares them even more than it does me, because in their minds, this is all there is. It has forced me to consider what I feel is most important in life, and why I think we're here, and the answer is always SERVING OTHERS. I feel like I've done something productive when I do something for someone else. Particularly lately, doing things for other people is what keeps me sane when I start thinking about those fears I have. No matter what goes on in the supernatural world, no matter what happens after death, I feel like I'm using my time here WELL if I'm using it for someone else. I feel that SO deeply and SO strongly, and it's such a comfort to me.
  

I really hope I don't come off sounding self-righteous as I write about this stuff, it's just how I've been feeling lately and it's what I think God is really working on in me. None of this movement toward servanthood is a result of my own virtue or "goodness" - it's only possible through God's work in me, to make me more like Christ. I'm just so thankful that he cares enough about me and the kind of person I become that He's willing to do the hard work of changing my heart.