Another view

So yea, I can be quite a random person at times.
Random statements, random jokes on my sisters like logging on into Sab's facebook and posting random pictures for fun. ;)

One afternoon 2 weeks ago, I finished hospital early and was waiting for the free COFA (College of Fine Arts) bus back to uni/home. Having 30minutes or so to spare, I decided that I should have a look at the gallery since I never have the luxury of soaking up the artsy air even though I've been at Vinnies for 1year plus (as I am always running to catch the bus back).

Being the jakun (uncultured) Labuanite who stays in trees, I honestly thought the pictures were "fugly." I have never been a fan of modern art, and no matter how cultured and artsy I tried to convince myself to be, I just felt the pictures were kindergarden scrawls!

Of course, being jakun as well, I didn't bother to pick up the picture guide and it was only when I finished and walked out, I read the synopsis of the exhibition. It was actually a collection of pictures drawn by autistic children.

And everything shifted after that. The pictures became more than just fugly scribblings but testaments of the children's efforts. No longer judging merely from a stereotypical view of prettiness but triumphant beauty.

I like to imagine that's how God views our lives. The tangles and blotches on our canvas.
Perhaps not necessarily pretty in the world's standards
but...hopefully beautiful in God's.

The things we learn in med school

As told during our lecture today:

Five doctors went duck hunting one day. Included in the group were a general practitioner, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a surgeon and a pathologist. After a time, a bird came winging overhead. The first to react was the general practitioner who raised his shotgun, but then hesitated.

"I'm not quite sure it's a duck," he said, "I think that I will have to get a second opinion." And of course by that time, the bird was long gone.

Another bird appeared in the sky soon thereafter. This time, the pediatrician drew a bead on it. He too, however, was unsure if it was really a duck in his sights and besides, it might have babies. "I'll have to do some more investigations," he muttered, as the creature made good its escape.

Next to spy a bird flying was the sharp-eyed psychiatrist. Shotgun shouldered, he was more certain of his intended prey's identity. "Now, I know it's a duck, but does it know it's a duck?" The fortunate bird disappeared while the fellow wrestled with this dilemma.

Finally, a fourth fowl sped past and this time the surgeon's weapon pointed skywards and he fired without hesitation. BOOM!! The surgeon lowered his smoking gun and turned nonchalantly to the pathologist beside him: "Go see if that was a duck, will you?"

A dash of perspective..

I have been dreading the 7 o'clock starts with surgery recently.
And a little frazzled in Cardiothoracic surgery where everything is high powered (I am so afraid of knocking over the harvested veins when scrubbed in) and everyone is highly strung. (Which is why our residents work 7am to 8pm every night for 6 days and then get the whole week off and alternate)

But I am reminded that I am actually in a very blessed place.
My hospital is state of the art and simply beautiful.
I have quite a cushy job as a RA and get paid to attend MDT meetings (of which I would have attend anyway as a student).
And I am reminded of the pre U days where I was looking forward and dying to get into med (and now dreading and complaining about things!)

So yea, life is good :)

And she shall be called woman..

with a mixture of events last week, it does feel sometimes almost cursed to be a woman. (To be theologically correct, we are indeed cursed as mentioned in Genesis; just in a different way for men and a different way for women)

there are times where I am convinced that life would be easier to be born a man.
Easier to go for mission trips (and yet more girls always go than guys)
Easier to do "dangerous" things
Easier to lead at church

where as a woman, depth can be a liability and where there is some truth to this phrase "The average girl would rather have beauty than brains, because she knows the average man can see much better than he can think"
where we are created with emotions and an innate sense of fostering relationships (not merely the bgr kind) yet those are the most unpredictable of the lot
and plus in today's age, at the same time we have to be equal if not better than men in our careers and achievement esp in medicine.

And there is a tug, where we are created to cry and yet in the wake of passive manhood we have no choice but to be independent. Which then becomes a liability because men want to be needed.
What a paradox!
And because we are women, we feel so much deeper and with a deeper love hand in hand comes a deeper hurt.

Which is why I cried today at church service where Mothers Day was celebrated. Where the sermon was simple but a testimony of mothers.
For the women and their pain.
I cried for you, who lost his mother 10 years ago. I remember you even here.
For mothers who have to shoulder a greater responsibility most of the time to make families work.
For the women who are left holding their children when fathers walk away.
For women who are often most affected by wars men plan.

(credits:www.postsecret.blogspot.com)

And yet, also reminded beautifully again...
although we feel so much deeper and with a deeper love comes a deeper hurt.
but with a deeper hurt, births also a deeper love.

The sinful woman who was forgiven by Jesus lavished perfumed oil to wash his feet.
It was the women who stayed while Jesus was hung on the cross.
The godly mothers who were instrumental in teaching their children to love God.
Women also outnumber men in the global church.

I don't mean this to be a guy bashing post. :)
Certainly guys have the work cut out for them as well.

I guess, it is just a reminder to us girls, yes womanhood is full of emotions and we carry the weight of many things, but I believe and pray in God, He will redeem our womanhood even as we try to juggle so many challenges.

Happy Mothers Day.

Snapshots

(Beautiful conference site)

Went for IMPACT, a CMDFA (Christian Medical and Dental Fellowship of Australia) annual camp where doctors and med/dental students came from all over Australia to Sydney.


New faces, old friends (like Yoda!) and although nothing "earth-shattering" new, great reminders of what God is doing and generously allows us to partner Him. Themes of mercy, justice, compassion echoed again clear. A refreshing acceptance of Christians with different ways of worship; John Dickson (Sydney Anglican) giving the main address yet also "free worship" at night and "Brethren style" open floor for people to pray and share.


And I went canoeing in this lake!


Anyway,
Over the past 2 years I've began to be more selective in my reading, greatly preferring older or those with a life-story to tell. Looking back at my walk, my perceptions and responses have been sharply redefined by "suffering." I find myself drawn to those who have endured rather than the next big thing on the Christian scene. There is something refining about the fire and something genuine after the pruning.

And so, this is something I find true....

"I think it is important to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situations; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice...We are mistaken when we compare war to "normal life." Life has never been normal....

War makes death real to us: and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians in the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centred in this world, were always doomed to a final destruction. In ordinary times only a wise man can realise it. Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along be living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment to soon.

CS Lewis "Learning in wartime" 1939.

And indeed it is true, for now even me, the stupidest of us, knows.
Thus now I am not disillusioned, but rather was disillusioned before.