Mondays....

Isn’t it funny how just one phone call can send your day into a real tailspin? I had forgotten that today was Monday the 13th. Really, I should probably have been paying more attention since I have a long history of not having good days on the 13th.

So my morning started off with a call about 9:30am that some people at work wanted to meet at 11am, could I make it? Long story short, instead of the raise I had requested, my contract is not being renewed and will expire August 31st. This is what I believe is called “real life”.... The why & how are not necessarily important to me right now. So, instead, I’m going to take a moment to write about faith.

Most of what I knew about faith I learned by watching the “big people” in my life when I was younger. My childhood definition involved Saturday masses, Hail Mary’s, Our Fathers, and lots of kneeling. And then I turned twelve and experienced my crisis of faith. My world was turned upside down for the next five years thanks to rather significant scoliosis and a series of torture devices known as back braces; and I was absolutely certain that God had forsaken me.

Fast forward to my first year of medical school at 25. Can you think of a more unlikely time to experience a rediscovery of faith? And in the Gross Lab, of the most unlikely places? How ironic to be drowning in a scientific world, only to have a huge spiritual revelation. Without being graphic, what I discovered there was that the human body is so extraordinarily complex, that the likelihood of each one being created correctly down to the smallest of blood vessels was so terrifically unlikely, that God had to exist. That realization opened my mind, and in the eleven years since, I’ve continued to have small realizations here and there.

The past two years of pursuing this adoption have been nothing if not a tremendous exercise of faith. Over a year ago, I realized that I had to hand over all my control of this situation and wait for what I wanted. As we get closer to traveling I realize that instead of getting easier over the next week, my faith in the adoption system, the Russian government, in myself will all be tested even more; so perhaps, today was the day that God said I needed to start practicing a bit early.

Right now, at this moment, it is a bit hard to believe that this job situation will work out. When I was younger, my dad often quoted John Donne, “This too shall pass.” I hope it does. I hope that something better is right around the corner & that maybe today is all about making some changes for the better for me and my family. But right now, I’m having a little bit of trouble with the believing part of faith....

The rosary beads by-the-way belong to my maternal grandmother. She has been and continues to be my example of trying to live a life full of faith.