They tell you grad school is like trying to drink water out of a fire hydrant.
They were right. You can be told that grad school is hard, but it'll never really prepare you for the level and intensity that you're thrown into. It's a privilege to go to school though. Having a college degree and studying in optometry school is an opportunity that I am very thankful and blessed to have, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
It's hard. I chose this life. It's okay for me to feel like it's not easy.
The truth is after midterms, I felt a wave of exhaustion take over me. What was I getting into?
This was supposed to be the supposed easiest year, yet I didn't feel like I was particularly exceling. Don't get me wrong, I'm passing my classes. I'm doing okay if you look at my grades alone, but you just start to feel the weight of it all.
"How can I do this for another 4 years? How much am I missing out on? Is this worth it? Am I capable?"
Doubts can plague you even in the spaces you felt called to. In fact, in the midst of calling, you can have the most doubts. I think to Jesus after He was baptized being called into the wilderness and 40 days of fasting. That was when He was attacked the most. Was it worth it to live out God's all for His life? Didn't He wonder about power or riches? Didn't He want to choose another path? Temptation is not a sin. Doubts are not sinful. Faith is living to overcome. Jesus, in His full humanity and divinity, chose to overcome, and now that same Holy Spirit lives in us.
I wonder what will happen if I give up. If I decide that this is all too much.
What keeps me going isn't God sometimes. I'll be honest. What keeps me here is the shame of knowing how sucky I'll feel having to tell everyone I quit. What keeps me here is the guilt of wasting my parent's efforts and time for me not to see the next four years out. What keeps me going is not why I started in the first place.
When I prayed over optometry school, God was with me even before it came to mind. God was with me through the tears and agony. God was studying with me as I ceaselessly studied for 12 hours a day over the summer for my OAT exam and my Organic Chemistry 2 summer class. God was with me when I opened my acceptance email last year. The reason that I'm here, still here, is because God is with me. That's all I know. That's all I can hope in. That's the only saving grace in anything I do: the full assurance of God's presence with me.
As I continue to dive into school, it's so easy to lose my sense of self.
Wake up. Go to school. Go to labs. Practice. Study. Sleep.
Sometimes eat when I finally cannot bear hunger anymore. Angry at everyone else because I refuse to take care of myself and take responsibility for my limitations.
Joy, rest, love, peace, and hope are all side effects of residing in God's presence.
The Monday after I felt like I bombed my retinoscopy competency, I just felt everything come crashing down because if I failed at school, what else did I have? It was my defining trait now. It was what I lived for. Every day is centered around school: studying for the next test, preparing for the next competency, and I feel like a circus monkey always trying to perform to live another day (dramatics, I know).
Something I've been learning in this season of my life is that choosing God first is not something that just happens. You don't just wake up with free time. Your schedule doesn't suddenly clear up for Bible study or prayer. You decide every moment you're alive to choose who you belong to (yourself, your academics, your work, your friends, the world, your family, or God) and why you're alive in this world (to be happy, to enjoy yourself, to be loved, to be liked, to be respected, to be rich, to be a doctor, or to be with God). It's been a tough season figuring that out and learning it again, and it's still ongoing.
As excited as I am for school to end (less so for finals), I think it's easy to always be looking to "what's next" rather than appreciate "what is". Each season has its own value, in the beautiful, fruitful seasons it's so easy to get lost in the lushness and forget the toil: the blood, sweat, and many tears that came before harvest. In the seasons where you're waiting, you gain patience, appreciation, and you lose the selfish entitlement that comes with wanting things in your way, your timing, and by your timetable.
As I write this blog, I'm three weeks out from finals. It's been a long time since I've written for my blog. It's because I'm busy, but I forget how writing my blog, writing in general, is so life-giving and nourishing to my soul and honors the person God created me to be. It's a moment when I connect with myself and with God in the intimate, personal way He created me to function and enjoy the abundance of life.
Burnout happens from burden, and God asks for us to lay our burdens down on the cross where Jesus first laid down his own life. When you feel the burden, the exhaustion, the numbness of it all getting to you, I think my first step is just acknowledging that something is wrong here. Of course, there will be times when I'm tired and overworked, but it shouldn't be an ongoing affair. It's a symptom of a greater disease, the sickness of self-reliance, and the only cure is going to God's welcoming and kind embrace.
I have to stop telling myself that when I "deserve" a break I'll take it. My life is not based on what I deserve anymore when I accepted Jesus into my life. My life is now about love, kindness, and goodness that Jesus gave his life for so that I could experience it all. My life is about mercies that are new even morning.
As I write again, I feel myself more and more alive. I find the joy in all the difficult. I see the hope and purpose being laid out. I stop looking ahead and look beside me where Jesus has been all along, holding me in all my hopelessness and giving me the strength to be rather than the strength to do.
In the midst of it all, I am never alone and neither are you. Not in the cheesy, we're in this together, post it on your Instagram story kind of way, but in the "God, You are here. That is enough for yesterday, today, and tomorrow." kind of way.
Song to Meditate on: Another In The Fire (Live) - Hillsong UNITED
There’s a grace when the heart is under fire
Another way when the walls are closing in
And when I look at the space between
Where I used to be and this reckoning
I know I will never be alone
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