it happens in the stillness and the waiting

view from monkey hill

when i was in training to become a doctor, both in medical school and in residency when someone would come to speak about international health, i would get this strange panicky feeling. it was a combination of a burning desire to do what they were doing, and a fear that it would never happen.

i worried that suddenly everyone around me listening would have the same eager anticipation and there would never be enough international healthcare jobs to go around.  i felt oddly competitive and nervous that somehow, i wouldn't make it.  it turned out that several of my friends did share that burning desire and did well planned things like fellowships in infectious disease, masters in public health, and the CDCs epidemiology intelligence service fellowship- a set up for international medical work. they were wise and calculated and they've all done great things and published papers and many are known around the world for their work in international healthcare.

but here i am having stumbled into international health through the backdoor. here i am in africa- doing medicine- almost by accident- but not really. 

sometimes the 'perfect' path isn't right. sometimes the logical way, isn't the best way. sometimes you have to live your life and make decisions that are needed at the time, and defer your big plans or wishes.  but somewhere inside me, i knew i was supposed to be here- doing something. 

this is the coolest thing about following God.  he's not afraid of messy and different and illogical.  he actually likes it. the messier the start, the more amazing the beauty of the finish. life, is like how president obama described a democracy yesterday, "noisy and messy and complicated." at least that is how my life is. 

today when i reached the top of monkey hill, (which i could climb because i think i've finally kicked the amoebas, and have had two headache free days!) i felt good and healthy and i remembered the goodness of God.  i remembered sitting in classrooms and lecture halls and wanting to push fast-forward and be. right. where. i. am. now.

wow.

with out an infectious disease fellowship, with out the EIS, i am here doing grassroots medicine, which is actually what i really wanted.  there are all sorts of 'difference makers'- because we are all different and we all do make a difference.  i'm one of the small scale ones.

up on the hill, looking down over the town and the city all the way to lake victoria i remembered how my anxiety and my many 'maps' of my years of how to get here, my attempts at being calculated, brought me only more anxiety and dissatisfaction. that my planning only added to the noisy-ness.  then i remembered how mike and i would climb monkey hill on our return visits to uganda, how we'd look out over this same view, from this same seat and we would quietly ask God if we should come here. for 6 years we heard "no."  but then we heard "yes."

it was in the stillness, and the asking.  that is where it happened.

had i tried to get my grubby little hands on it earlier- had i tried to force it or push my agenda, it wouldn't have been right for me, or mike, or our kids. at. all. this dream needed to stew on the back burner for a long while.  this desire needed certain jobs finished first, babies born in places with wise doctors to help with confusing issues, growth and development and special help for zoe during certain years. i needed to be broken, and broken again, and to feel the warmth and know the protection of the everlasting arms before i could move my people over here.  all these things were orchestrated- beautifully.

up on that hill i thought about zoe and God and being here.  about his promise to care for us and to provide for our needs especially when we are obedience- when we trust- when we do it his way. i thought about the blessings bestowed on us, on zoe, since we've moved here- so far away from help, from services, from special schools, from support systems.  that was my greatest fear- that moving here, would royally mess her up. 

on our last visit to uganda, the summer before we moved,  i remember going to church at the university chapel, and laying it out for God. okay, it seems you are saying yes, that you are saying now....but zoe? what about her? what will we do with her here? who will help? what services are there? what if......  and i simply heard in my heart, "do you trust me?" to which, after all the things that had happened in the past 6 years, i could quickly and honestly answer, "yes.  i do trust you."

and that was it.  there wasn't an investigation about services, or schools.  there was just that trust. a trust that probably wasn't fully there 6 years before- a trust that needed time and relationship to strengthen.

now zoe is at a typical school.  last night i read a regular parenting your teenager book- not a special education book, not a how help your different child book- a regular book.  these are gifts.  these are blessings.  these are pieces of the promise.  things with zoe are not 'fixed', there are no guarantees that things will stay as good as they are right now, and there are still many mountains to climb with her- but there is a promise. 

it's the same promise that got me here on a different path.  the same life giving promise- that when we listen, when we give up and give in, when we come from a place of stillness and waiting- beauty and magic happen.

amen?