Blog
January 21, 2022
My dog has superpowers. No, really. Reagan is a rescue dog. Breed: small ball of white fluff. He’s the only lap dog I’ve ever had, and he came to me quite by accident. Or so I thought. My sister-in-law, Kim, brought him at our request when she came to visit for Thanksgiving. That was 2020. At the time Kim was helping my niece foster another dog who was a bit of a bully to Reagan, and it seemed logical for Reagan to stay with us until the other dog had a new, safe home. For starters, Reagan loves our house. He has a pack here. He goes for a walk every day and has a big yard to run and play. Plus, we always have a houseful of kids to play and snuggle with.
One winter night (well, as winter as it gets in So Ca) Reagan went outside with the pack, and we heard a splash. My husband raced to the swimming pool and there was Reagan paddling for his life in the icy water. He scooped him out, and I ran for the towel and the hair dryer to warm him. He stayed by my side, snuggled in a warm blanket for the rest of the night. By the next morning, Reagan and I were inseparable.
OK, so falling in the pool isn’t the best introduction to a superhero, and his origin story doesn’t get any more glamorous. What we know is that he was neglected and abandoned. The combination of poor nutrition and trying to spend his days trying gnawing out of a cage, destroyed his teeth. When my sister rescued him he didn’t even know how to cuddle.
Very soon after bringing him home, Kim’s husband, Dan, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. During the months that followed Reagan left Dan’s bedside only to carry out basic life functions and returned to curl up next to him. When the visiting nurses kicked him off the hospital bed, he found his way back up, determined that no one should suffer alone. He was Dan’s little miracle, a tangible reminder that God was comforting him in the darkest of moments.
After Dan passed, Reagan took on the next mission, being a constant companion in my sister’s grief. In one of the loneliest and most painful times in Kim’s life, Reagan gave her warmth. He was always touching her, even with just an extended paw.
Fast forward a few years and Special Agent Fluff, as we have since nicknamed him, brought his magic to our house. I didn’t know I needed him. I have two other affectionate dogs whom I treasure and a house full of love and laughter. What I needed was rest. My life had become so full of taking care of patients and my family, I never sat still. I jumped from folding a load of laundry to helping with homework, to volleyball practice in a never-ending swirl. Queue Special Agent Fluff. Soft, warm, snuggly ball of love plopped right in my lap. And instead of getting up to do the next thing and the next, now I linger and am still. I reflect, if for even a few minutes, on who God is and soak up His warmth. I contemplate the enormity of everything God has done for me, through me, despite me. My house is not as clean, the laundry sometimes waits, but I have a greater sense of peace and calm than ever before.
What strikes me the most is that God is so amazing that He will take a small, unloved, abandoned street-dog and transform him into a force for good. Reagan has superpowers because he reflects God’s love. Imagine how much God can do through us if we are just open to letting him use us, open to letting him transform us from a poor begging mutt, to an adored, powerful agent of good.
On my birthday last year, Kim, my amazing, generous sister, gave me Reagan. She knew he had found his final mission and forever home.
January 19, 2022
I never bought into fairy tales much. Growing up I thought the female heroes were largely wimps. Who would choose to wear glass slippers? Please. But now it occurs to me that instead of age (and presumably wisdom) and a series of painful life circumstances conquering the idea of a fairytale, I believe in them more than ever.
I am reading Tim Keller’s Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering and near the beginning there is an excerpt from a woman whose life completely imploded when her husband left her and her four kids. Her kids suffered terribly, but she came to a place where she began telling the kids that this pain was the beginning of their fairytale. “God is giving us our fairytale–what do you see in the end?” (Keller, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, page 34)
At a lot of points in my life, the pain has been the beginning of the story. Feeling hopelessly out of place with my peers and family led me to explore new places and have an extraordinary education. The abuse and sociopathy from a person from my past led me to come to a place in my faith where God alone was truly enough. Shortly thereafter, I met my current husband who is truly a treasure. That’s the pattern of a fairytale, isn’t it? It starts with the protagonist overcoming some challenge to find bliss at the end. OK, so it doesn’t always end that way. Lives are full of suffering and invariably end in death not ‘happily ever after’. Only they don’t. For those of us who believe in Christ, they do end in eternal bliss. Here’s the thing though: you don’t have to get to the end of the story to meet the Prince. He’s slaying dragons, cutting down thorny vines, defeating the very forces of evil to get to you NOW. Finding yourself cuddled in God’s embrace is your fairytale. All the rest is background. Abusive pasts, tormenting patterns of sin, addiction, neglect, tragedy; it’s the background. That’s not to diminish how painful it was and is. It’s not to ignore the grief or forget the hunger. But it is to refocus the camera. In the center of the screen, you are in the Prince’s arms, eyes locked, full of confidence in forever, and everything else fades away.
It’s no wonder we crave fairytales. It’s no wonder writers for centuries have penned them successfully; they were simply expressing the beauty and truth of their surroundings. The fairytale is true and your very own, written for the desires of your heart. And you can live there RIGHT NOW. The way in is simple: look for the Prince, make Him alone the focus, sit in his arms, lock eyes, and have confidence in forever, and watch the rest of the world fade away.
December 31, 2021
I completed my one year Bible plan and started over today. It always amazes me that I can read God’s Word over and over and see something new every time. So, today I began again with Genesis and read through the fall of man. When I was a kid, it was very simple but still profound. Eve disobeys, Adam joins her, and there is separation from God. Sin equals inevitable separation from God. Later in my life the story became more complex. I could see that pride made Eve believe that she might know a better plan than God. End consequence: separation from God. Today, in my reading I was also focused on the intermediary step, shame. After Adam and Eve sin, they feel shame, see their flaws, and hide from the presence of God. Although clearly the shame came from the sin. It was the shame that pushed them away from God. Sin, shame, separation, cycling around and around, gaining momentum with each turn.
But Christ intervened. Covered by His blood, the sin can no longer condemn us to the inevitable absence of God. We ask forgiveness and the cycle is broken. We can delight in the glorious presence of God once again. But wait. What about the shame? Like sin, we have been given Christ’s power over it, but so often we don’t take it. We hang on to the shame from the sin and decline to accept total forgiveness. As a result we are still cycling to the separation phase. We let shame exclude us from God’s presence. We permit shame to let us feel that we are no longer worthy of doing God’s work. And we are effectively crippled.
In some ways shame is the refusal to fully accept the covering of Christ’s blood. Is it the pride of “Jesus is enough for other people’s sin but not for mine”? Who do we think we are? Are we so important that we have the power to partially exempt ourselves from forgiveness? Of course not. But we do have power over our own shame. We do have the Christ-given ability to disavow our shame and allow ourselves to live in the presence of God. Shame is the deceit Satan offers. Shame hinders the effectiveness of our ministry. So when you begin to relive your sins, mistakes, blunders, embarrassing moments, tell yourself again and again that God gave you power over shame. Christ indelibly broke the cycle already. Claim that. Imagine shame as Satan himself, a slithering, serpent and go chop its head off.
1 December 2021
Yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed. The pain of my patients seeped into my pores, unspeakable, unimaginable tragedy in their lives crashing in waves over them, and I was simply trying to stand with them for a moment. I am not supposed to let the waves move me. I have attended lectures and read books on boundaries in my work, and I know I must set firm ones in order to survive this work and be in the moment with the next patient. Still, some of these patients I have had for over a decade. To not feel their pain would be inhuman. I was created with empathy. I consider it a blessing, a gift, to have the ability to see others. I wouldn’t trade it for any other gift. I wouldn’t trade it to look like a model or have incredible success. I have to embrace it and discipline it all at once. It is like my teenagers: treasured, unique, and designed for a bigger purpose, yet in need of boundaries and moderation.
There are moments when my empathy is so wildly sprinting through the open that I cannot tame it on my own. There have also been moments when I was twenty some hours into a who-knows-how-long-shift in residency and could feel it begin to drain from me. Those are the moments when I am brought back into a clear knowledge that the empathy is not really mine. Instead, my empathy is only a whimpering shadow of my Father’s. I can relate to the empathy that looks at someone entangled in sin and just loves them. I have been shown that love. I can relate to the empathy that weeps with friends and seeks out the hidden and lost. But I cannot fathom the empathy that sends one’s child as a sacrifice.
It’s the first day of advent, and my daughter just bounced in my room with her advent calendar delighted to open a small door. I laughed with her as she triumphantly pulled out at a tiny, sparkly bear. My daughter, too, is sparkling, and I caught a spark. Advent. The coming of the most incredible act of empathy the world has ever known.
God, thank you. Thank you for your boundless empathy. Thank you that I am your daughter and that you have given me this gift to love your people. Help me to use it in the way you intend and allow your encouragement and healing to flow through me on the way to your children. Please give me the strength to stand strong with the next patient, and for even a brief moment, bring them relief.
11 November 2021
I have spent many hours over the past few months helping edit college application essays for my daughter, her friends, and family friends. I am not an editor, but somehow the applications of these beautiful girls fell into my lap. All four have perfect or near-perfect grades, a transcript full of college-level classes, and are well-rounded from athletics to community service. I feel for them, trying to cram the essence of who they are into a page for a chance at a
torturously competitive school. The probability of rejection is high; I can’t change those odds.
It strikes me that rejection is an inevitable part of life. I have read articles stating a fiction writer’s chance of getting a literary agent to represent them are 1/6000. 1 in 6000? That sounds absurd to me. Why bother to try and publish? For whom do I want to publish? Is it trying to be obedient to a calling (which I can assert confidently is the reason I get up early every morning to write)? Is it seeking to own the title ‘author’ which I have wanted since childhood? Or is it trying to impress someone or bolster my own self-image? I desperately want it to be entirely about my faith. I pray for that and strive to discipline any other stray thoughts. But ultimately, I still want to feel accepted. In a world of rejection, I want to be accepted.
It’s not that I’m a rejected person. I have a husband who mysteriously cherishes me. I have a father who (much like the character in my novel) would sacrifice everything for me. I have loving and affectionate friends and colleagues. Even my teenagers will stammer (however reluctantly) back an ‘I love you too, Mom’. Still, rejection in this world is as ubiquitous as the desire to feel accepted: a complete setup. I believe that this sets us up to long for and pursue God. I believe the mismatch confirms every feeling that we are not yet home. Here on this foreign planet, I am keenly aware of how blessed I am to know a spot where I can snuggle into the God of the universe and just be still. It’s not a space that prevents anxiety or depression--more on this later. Rather, it’s a space of hope that the rejection will one day end.
9 November 2021
This past weekend, I had the privilege of meeting Elizabeth Mittelstaedt at church. She is the founder of Lydia magazine which is translated all over Europe and the author of Walking in My Shoes, her memoir of escaping communism, embracing her calling, and pursuing God despite tremendous pain. I read her book in one sitting. I was sitting on the balcony off my bedroom, with a mug of tea and Reagan, my white fluff-ball-of-a-dog nestled on my lap. I read and I read. Her book is compelling and powerful because she writes from a profound place of vulnerability. She has lived grace and redemption, and she boldly offers her own pain to help her reader. You will want to embrace her when you are done reading it. And that’s exactly what I got to do!
The amazing thing is that in real-life she is infinitely more huggable. God’s light shines through her and creates an irresistible gravitational field around her. I am not someone who seeks out celebrities. In fact, the times I have run into them in southern California, I pity them for the intrusion of the crowd forming around them and walk away deliberately offering them the dignity of privacy. But Elizabeth Mittelstaedt (fitting to her name) is a hero not a celebrity. Her life’s work has been about building up others for the kingdom not for fandom. Her battles have been fought on her knees, her strength derived from her time spent in God’s presence. She, in her graciousness, offered to read my book. I feel incredibly humbled and unworthy of her reading my work. Then, I remind myself that her heroic example starts with vulnerability, and the force of her work was ignited by the very same God who dwells in me. So, today I will send off my work to Mrs. Mittelstaedt, as the next step in my journey to honor the One who has put the pencil on our hand. Köszönöm szépen!
8 November 2021
There’s some people in my life that are so incredible I feel overwhelmed by God's mercy to me because he allowed my path and theirs to intersect. I often feel this way about my husband. I have known the excruciating pain of abuse in a marriage and subsequent divorce. I am so humbled and grateful to now be married to a man of faith who truly loves me and my children. I feel him worship beside me with earnest fervor and marvel at this daily evidence that no matter my past, Jesus’s blood is enough to redeem me. I get to see myself again as the little girl with curly red hair, barely long enough to be coaxed into pigtails, who just wanted to serve Him.
I tell people of faith who had good moments in childhood, to go back to a photo they like of themselves in their preschool years, a moment where they felt innocent and spirited when they hadn’t yet made the biggest mistakes that haunt them now. I ask them to go back to a time when they hadn’t yet been taunted with the lie that their past has rendered them unqualified and incapable of doing God’s work. I want them to imagine how much God loved them then, as that child, popsicle dripping down their chin, laughing in unadulterated delight. And then I remind them gently, just as I remind myself, that God’s love doesn’t change. Nothing they have done and nothing they could ever accomplish can change it. His love has never been and will never be in their control.
7 November 2021
Yesterday I had tea with my beloved friend, Laura, whom I haven’t seen since the beginning of COVID. She is a character in Loss of Lies: the only character who is entirely non-fiction (except my dogs). The question is why. Why did I not simply not borrow some characteristics? Why is every detail of her from her eye color to her empathy unaltered? I believe it is because she is already completely authentic. There isn’t fiction in her character because there isn’t fiction in her. She has let God work in her life so closely that she has approached the person God intended her to be more closely than anyone I know. That’s not to imply she’s not creative or sparkly. Rather she’s so effervescent, she could only have been illuminated by God.
3 November 2021
Last night I was helping my son write a poem with words found in Shelly’s Frankenstein. I’m walking back through high school English with my kids, and I’m remembering the tumult of falling in love with one novel and then being forced into an interaction with another that was complete drudgery. My teenage self did not like Frankenstein. Too dark. I wanted to re-read Austen for the millionth time and be her companion walking through the text and finding her winking at me. But like most good literature, Frankenstein grew with me, and I found myself reflecting on the disastrous consequences of rushing ahead with my own undertakings instead of waiting for God.
I just completed a draft of my first novel. The process of writing it was magical; the words didn’t trickle from me, they gushed. I was more energized than I have been in many years, ecstatic to watch the novel form around me. At the time I was writing, I was blissfully unaware of what would happen when I finished. Now, I face the grim reality of the next step. Should I bury the work and my vulnerability with it in the archives of my computer? There are cobwebs trolled by venomous arachnids down there. Should I try to independently publish and struggle with covers and copyrights and issn numbers? Those are investments of time a full-time physician and mom of four teenagers doesn’t give away lightly. Or do I bang on the door of countless inevitable rejections, begging someone in the publishing community to give me a chance? Am I rushing ahead of God’s plan?
I don’t need my name in print. I, mercifully, don’t need to write for survival. So I do what I always do at an impasse, I pray.
God, please use this work to reach someone for your kingdom. In your perfect timing, allow its words to bring healing and comfort. Alone, I would likely have created a monster, but with you, this novel has the power to permeate wounds. So I hand it to you with all its weaknesses and imperfections. I surrender this, too, to your plan.
1 November 2021
For the past few months I have stolen an hour of the still morning. Wedged between my quiet time and walking the dogs, before the crazed scramble of getting three teenagers off to school, and just as the light is beginning to sneak over the mountains, framed by my bedroom window, I write. The hour is euphoric, the most energizing part of the day. The characters meet me there, and I drink tea with them. My three dogs snuggle up near me on the bed, and their soft snoring is comforting. My mind wanders in jubilance, in freedom, like my dogs when I let them off their leashes. I, like them, can power up and down trails completely unaware that I am doing something that others see as work.
It shouldn’t surprise me that I love to write. While I was doing pre-med at an Ivy League school, I majored in Spanish Literature simply because literature was a part of me I could not let go. I was enchanted by the magic of García Márquez and laughed aloud at the wit of Cervantes. But after I graduated, I went to medical school and let the literary part of me get buried under cadavers and endless memorization. I didn’t resent studying medicine. I love medicine and care deeply about my patients. I am also convinced I am doing the work I was called to do.
But now I feel I am supposed to do this too. Exactly what this is I could not tell you, but I write with unabridged delight, sprinting like a child towards the unknown.