Aristotle, give me a break

If there is something you learn immediately upon starting internship, it is that you are going to continually make mistakes. Some will be no big deal, others will be a REALLY big deal. While everyone who's gone through it expects you to make at least a few, how can you go about avoiding them?

On a day off, feeling the brunt of my mistakes, insecurities, and general feelings of inadequacy accumulated in a week's time, I went to my little haven, the bookstore. Perusing the shelves, desperate for self-improvement, what could glow with promise of oracular wisdom more brightly than Atul Gawande's recent best-seller, Better? I grabbed it immediately and ravaged its introductory pages, hunting for some secret wisdom. I later landed on this sentence:

Medicine is fundamentally a human profession. It is therefore troubled by human failings, failings like avarice, arrogance, insecurity, misunderstanding.

First I thought, well that's a little self-absorbed. All jobs can be affected by these misgivings. After softening from my initial refute, I slowly recalled examples of mistakes I had made in the last few weeks because of each of these failings, sins, maladaptive behaviors, whatever you would like to call them. So I read the section, bought the book, and moved on for the week.

A few days later while holding the phone and frantically writing my notes for the day, I looked up at the white board in our team room. My upper level had discreetly written this little one liner:

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. Aristotle.

I read it, and my reaction was immediate: I don't have pleasure in my job right now. WHY don't have have pleasure in my job right now? Why? Why am I ticked when the nurse calls to get my approval for an order that I have obviously written in plain English, or the patient has another question about their condition that I’ve already explained at least five times, my pager is going off, I haven’t eaten lunch, and yet again I've forgotten to write an order, making me late to go home? Why don't I have pleasure in this?! Argh!

So I was determined that the great philosopher couldn't possibly be right. I won't do better if I am happy (I am good at lying to myself. It's true.) But then on a day when I thought I just wasn't going to make it, Jamin sent me Aristotle's wisdom in Biblical form:

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noon-day sun. Psalms 35:4-6

And just a few days later, while driving in the dark on my way to work, I listened to a podcast explaining the parable of the talents. The story is about a king who gives three of his workers (excuse me, slaves) money to put to use. One guy invests well, one guy earns a little interest, and the other guy just hides the money because he's too darn scared to do anything with it.

The main points he makes are:

1. The money never belonged to the slaves in the first place.
2. We will be judged by what we do with what we are given.
3. While you might produce less with your talents than others, the point is to produce SOMETHING.
3. All of the gifts given to us are exactly that, gifts, all to be used for God's glory.

So I agree, absolutely, that my innate avarice has the potential to put someone's life in danger. And the reality is, that whatever my job, whether it be performing surgery or selling paper (Yes, I watch The Office), it should be done for the glory of God. And I think this can only happen when I realize that none of my gifts, none of my opportunities, none of my abilities, belong to me. It is all His. And the crazy thing about it, is that this is what actually makes me HAPPY.

Other Bible verses to back this up:

Isaiah 43:7 I was created for His Glory

Matthew 16:24 Everyone's favorite: When you lose your life for his sake is when you find it (Bonhoeffer. I need to read Bonhoeffer)

Psalms 19:8 I find joy in doing what's right.

Psalms 4:7 The Lord's joy is better than earthly things (like food).

Nehemiah 8:10 The joy of the Lord is my strength (incidentally there is sharing of food here.)


So my joy is found in Him, His joy is my strength and can bring glory to my work, and all of my talents, all of my time, and all of my rewards, belong to Him who created me. Here's to another week!

He KNOWS me. . .

I am starting this blog to hopefully give God all the glory, and to be honest with myself and others, so that I can become a real, transparent, woman who is effective in her personal and professional life. To make my life count for his glory.

Here's some verses about spiritual intimacy, about God's intimate knowledge of ME, US.

Psalm 44:21 He knows my heart


1 Samuel 16:7 He sees my heart


Job 33:4 He shaped me and gave me life


Psalm 69:5 He knows my mistakes


John 2:23-25 Jesus knows my heart/what is in me


Isaiah 59:2 My sin separates me from the perfection/Holiness that is God


1 Corinthians 5:21 If I accept that God loves me and made me, and that sin separates me from this love, I can become the righteousness of God. Wow.



Here's the real thing:

The truth is I have been afraid of trusting, of admitting that this great love exists. I know I need spiritual intimacy, and I need a saving love. But believing that I matter to the God of the universe, believing that I was created to be the righteousness of God, is honestly pretty intimidating. If I don't matter, I can screw up as much as I want and there is no real significance. But to think my words and actions are eternally affecting- holy crap. I better get my act together.

Sometimes Christians come across as inauthentic. That's probably because we are human, and we forget the roots of why we are Christians in the first place. I am not perfect. I will tell you things just so you will like me. I lie. I curse. I put myself above others. If you have a standard, I'm sure I've broken it, biblical or non-biblical. I cannot save myself from myself, so I need a savior to do this. Jesus has done this, and his saving/atoning power makes sense. (Books that are helpful- Basic Christianity by John Stott, and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis).

Here's an awesomely revealing quote from Blaise Pascal (17th century mathematician and philosopher, and unabashed Jesus lover. There IS nothing new under the sun)


The characteristic of human nature is to love onself and to consider only one's self. But what else can one do? It cannot help its own love being inconsistent and miserable. It wants to be great and sees it is only small. It wants to be happy and finds it is wretched. It wants to be the object of other people's love and esteem and sees that its faults deserve only their dislike and contempt (ouch!). Finding itself in this predicament, it reacts in the most unjust and criminal passion imaginable. For it conceives a deadly hatred for the truth that would rebuke it and convince it of its faults. It would like to eliminate this truth, and not being able to destroy it, it represses it as much as it can in the consciousness of itself and of others. So it takes every precaution to hide its own faults from itself and others, and cannot bear to have them pointed out or noticed.


Spot on Blaise. I don't want anyone to know my faults, and I don't want to know the truth, because THEN I will have to respond to that truth, which means change. So I just push it down to that secret spot and react emotionally any time someone has the slightest criticism. Right? Right.


Here's his response to this behavior:


Unquestionably it is an evil to be so full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and yet unwilling to acknowledge them, since this results in the further evil of deliberate self delusion. We do not want others to deceive us. . . . So we ought not to be annoyed that they know and despise us because of our faults, because it is right that they should know us for who we really are and despise us if indeed we are despicable.


The problem is, man alive, how do we do this- fight against our own nature? I know I've tried the whole self chant "just don't think about yourself, Shelly come on, just be real". Man I'd say most of the time, if not almost always, nothing changes.


BUT then John Stott reminds me in Basic Christianity- I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have the book on me (dangit!):


Man cannot save himself from his selfishness anymore than a patient (in need of surgery) can heal himself without a surgeon.

(Just admit it! You would pass out doing your own appendectomy. Come on.)

And THEN that reminds me of a Bible verse my good friend Greg quotes, Romans 12:2:


Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

And this one (2 Corinthians 12:9-10):

But [Jesus] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So not only are we changed by the knowledge we have in Christ of this amazing love he has for us, but by being authentic and admitting we are weak, he becomes perfect in us.

Thank you Jesus! I pray that through your love and acceptance of us we can be authentic people for your glory!

OH yes and I start residency next week! All prayers welcome!