The Emperor's new clothes

For some stupid ridiculous reason yesterday I decided to go Boxing Day shopping with Will. The weather was beautiful and we walked up the hill to the mall with snowflakes settling gently all around us and our breath making steam in the cold. There was such an atmosphere of festivity and happiness that it was contagious. In the mall there were more people than I've ever seen there before. We took a deep breath and dove in. Christmas decorations were on sale! 60% off! I got sucked into buying some beautiful christmas balls and then in another store everything was 2 for 1! I bought underwear (which I didn't need) and a summer shirt (which I probably also did not need).
Will and I got separated and I waited outside the store we were supposed to meet at and didn't see him. I wandered through the crushing crowds calling his name and hoping he would hear me. It was stifling hot and there was so much noise and the lights were so bright and I began to feel suffocated and disgusted with myself. Why had I bought those christmas balls? And the underwear? Why had I given in to this rampant commercialism, this greedy striving to get more STUFF, this abdication of social responsibility and the wanton throwing away of money on cheap stuff?
There was a girl standing against a pillar holding a sign that said 'Instead of spending money, why not spend some time talking together?' and she had a group of people that had gathered around her talking to her. I don't know what they were talking about. Maybe they were just stopping to see why someone wanted to talk, not buy.
My last stop was a store with 2 for 1 swimsuits and I struggled out of my 3 layers of snow gear to try one on. The mirror in the change room was dark and I noticed suddenly how fat and ugly the swimsuit made me look. I did not look like the mannequin in the window; I looked ridiculous. I tried to get it off but the tie was stuck and for some reason I was embarrassed like I didn't want anyone to know I was standing in a little swimsuit in the middle of winter in this crazy mall full of rushing people.
I emerged from the mall to find Will waiting for me where we'd originally parted; looking as exhausted as me. We went outside and suddenly all around us was white snow; calm, tranquility, the beauty of nature, smiling neighbors shoveling their walkways.... I felt like I could breathe again.
After dinner yesterday evening I was playing scrabble with my mom and siblings and I was losing but telling them how I was going to beat them all and my mom suddenly asked me, why are you showing off?
I thought about it for a second and then said to her, “it's because I feel bad about myself, so I'm trying to compensate by making myself seem better.”
“Snap out of it”, she told me. “Just grow up.”
I gave her a look that said, “That's not a very supportive and comforting thing for a mother to say”
She laughed. “I only get paid $5/hour for this advice, so that's what you get! If you want something better, you'll have to pay me more.”
I thought about it later, and thought about shopping in the mall, and trying on that swimsuit in front of the mirror. Maybe it's the change in weather, but our bathroom mirror at home has become warped and no matter how you stand in front of it, it looks funny, kind of like a circus mirror. I look in that mirror and see myself looking strange and I know in my mind that that is not what I actually look like, but it still bothers me.
The problem is that in life I am often looking in the wrong mirror. The mirror in the mall tells me that if I spend my money and buy those beautiful clothes and if I get as much as I can I will have value and I will be satisfied. All those people are rushing around and I joined in like one more rat in the rat race.
But the problem is, when I listen to the lie, the lie that money and clothes and buying and stuff and fame and all that, will make me happy; I become disenchanted. I was disenchanted when I saw that girl holding the sign and I realized that I should be there holding that sign and actually talking to people. I was disenchanted when I looked at myself in a swimsuit and felt like the emperor who was walking through the city naked and suddenly realized he had been made a fool of and hadn't actually put on a beautiful invisible outfit: he was naked. I felt disenchanted when I suddenly realized over a scrabble game that it didn't matter if I won, but it mattered greatly how I lost.
Sometimes when we look in the wrong mirror we become deceived about the way things actually are, and we allow ourselves to be caught up in something that is false. And sometimes all it takes to make us see the truth is someone telling us to grow up and snap out of it.
At any rate, you won't catch me boxing day shopping for a while. Maybe you won't even catch me shopping for a while. But I am going to try my hand at scrabble again tonight....

Winter wonderland

So right now I'm totally snowed in, in every way possible. I went up to Kelowna for a week and had a most wonderful week- staying up late every night, going for 2 am walks in the snow and watching the flakes drift down in the orange light of street lamps....tobboganning, sitting by a crackling fire, playing scrabble and cards and dominoes (I lost horribly), hanging out with friends, watching movies (I finally saw the Dark Knight), eating oranges and chocolate and eggnog and having a wonderful time. Yesterday Will and I started the treacherous drive home and to make a long story short, we ended up stranded in Aggasiz with a broken down car, no cellphone, no tools, no warm blankets, and yes, I had left my wool socks behind in Kelowna.
To make the even longer miraculous story shorter, I spent christmas eve eve sleeping on Will's shoulder in the cab of a tow truck with tendrils of cigarette smoke curling around the cab and outside the snow was falling.
This morning I woke up in my own bed and realized I have a broken down car and the airport is shut down and I'm supposed to leave for Chicago in just over a week and apparently the snow is just going to keep falling. I think I would be excited about the adventure but the fact is, I'm not just snowed in physically, I feel a bit snowed in emotionally.
I feel like I left part of myself behind in Kelowna and I wish I was there but at the same time of course I want to be home in Vancouver for christmas.... of course I do. I love my family and I wanted to see the look on my nieces' faces when they open their presents and I want to sit by the christmas tree and play scrabble with my mom and have eggnog drinking competitions with my brothers and all the wonderful christmas things we do.....
Several years ago a man I hardly knew prophesied over me and told me that I had laid plans, but that God was going to turn them upside down. That he knew the desires of my heart and was going to give them to me, but in a way that was different than expected.
I feel like right now I'm in a surreal world. It doesn't help that everything is buried in snow outside, which makes it seem a bit weird. But things are not going according to plan. Perhaps that's a good thing. Perhaps I just need to go with what is happening and not worry about what might happen.
So while I'm stuck in this winter wonderland I'm going to enjoy it. We have a hot tub on the porch that we can wade through two feet of snow to get to.... and sit in it with eggnog... and of course there is gingerbread and candy canes and christmas carols and family and friends and lots of love and the joy that God brings every day, just one day at a time.

AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Last exam tomorrow! I'm freaking out!!!!!! I'm totally out of motivation and brains and energy, and I'm sort of considering not studying and just guessing on the exam, but it's pharmacology, and that's probably a bad idea.
I can't wait to be done and then I'm going to go to bed, in the middle of the day, yes, and catch up on sleep. Then I'm going to watch a movie. Any movie, I don't care which one, just something on a tv. It's been way too long.

Responding to the face of God

Another day with crazy patients today.... yelling at me, getting fresh with me, at least I didn't have anyone throw anything at me or pee on my shoes. (Yes, that has actually happened).
I've been studying like crazy recently, and in the next week I expect to be studying even more, because I have my last 2 exams coming up. After these exams I'm done writing exams for UHSA. The only ones I'll have to write are my board licensing exams (big 8-10 hour monsters), one of which will be coming up in a few short months. In January I'm going to a little town in Illinois called Champaign to take another course, and then in the Spring I'm likely heading off the Atlanta, Georgia. These aren't definite firm plans, but since people are always asking me what I'm doing, it's helpful to at least have something to say. (“What do you mean, you have no idea where you're going?”)
I've been discouraged the last few months about my school, and not comfortable settling into my role as a doctor-to-be. This week I went out to TWU, where I studied chemistry for 4 years, and visited some of my old professors. My favorite teacher of all time, Dr. Van Dyke, who taught me organic and polymer chemistry, was delighted to see me and we chatted for a while before he had to rush off to an interview. I was heading back towards my car and he was still in his interview, and suddenly there was this little voice inside me that said, Heather, wait for him, because there is something he needs to say to you.
I dawdled around in the bookstore for awhile until he finished and then I went back to his office with him. We sat surrounded by bookshelves full of chemistry textbooks and talked about life, about school, about old memories and new ones that were being made.
“Heather,” he told me, “There's a piece of advice I want to give you. I don't think you will have a problem with this, but I want to tell you anyway.”
He told me how many doctors he had met had lost the human touch, they became so wrapped up in being professional and doing a good job that they forgot who they were, and who the patient sitting in front of them was. He looked at me with his kind eyes and said,
“This is what you tell them: I am not Dr. Davies. I am a person, like yourself, who responds to the face of God. I will share with you what I know and what I've learned, in the hopes that it can help you. Never be too professional to touch your patients, and to really get personal with them.”
I felt tears welling up in my eyes. At that moment I knew how true it was, what he was saying. It is so easy in this world to put a label on ourselves, or on other people. That man is a doctor. That woman is a librarian. She's a swimming instructor. She's a stay-at-home mom. He's a farmer.
And we put false labels on ourselves. I'm a nurse. I'm a student. I'm a chemist. I'm a doctor.
But what are we, really? Deep down inside, what are you?
You are a person- a living human being- created in God's image, specially created to respond to the face of God. Your meaning and purpose, my meaning and purpose, is found only in how I relate to God. Deep down inside I'm not a doctor, although that's fine if people call me that, but really I'm Heather Davies, I'm a child of God, and I've studied all this stuff about medicine with the hopes that I may be able to share it with other people and help them find healing. Knowledge is intended to serve other people... as an expression of their worth in God's sight.
It's hard to see myself the way God sees me. Some days I feel intelligent and beautiful, other days I feel pretty darn low. (Nursing seems to be a continual blow to my self-esteem!) But it helps to remember, who am I in Christ? And why am I doing this?
I challenge you to ask yourself those questions, in relation to your job. Have you lost touch with your 'patients'? (With your co-workers, your customers, your family?)Why has God given you the skills or the knowledge or the opportunities he has? How does it change the way you work to know that you are responding to the face of God, and out of that, sharing love with those people around you?