Monday, October 9, 2017

With What We Have

One of the hardest hurdles to clear in the adult world is the feeling of insignificance.

Regardless of our careers, we can get caught up in the sheer number of souls surrounding us. If we do charity work, we notice the many people we cannot serve. If we teach, we notice the students that cannot comprehend our work. If we work in medicine, we notice the patients we cannot treat. And if we are in academia, we notice that our work in so insignificant to the greater population that no one understands what we’re talking about.

The number of times I have to try to get other people to be excited about lysosome tubulation, even folks in Cell Biology, is higher than I would like to admit.

But that doesn’t mean that my job isn’t of some value.


I think it is safe to admit that every job in this world is important. We all know that if there were no volunteers, teachers, medical professionals, researchers, or anything else that the world would be far sicker, far more chaotic, and far more lost. However, it is difficult to make your own personal worth clear.

Especially to yourself.


Most of us believe that if we receive recognition or praise from our peers that our worth will be made evident. If our boss notices us, then maybe we will be able to matter a little bit more. If our business succeeds and we have a lot of money, then maybe we will be able to make a greater impact.

If people say they see us, then we must be important.

Right?



Unfortunately we cannot articulate the worth of our fellow man to the extent they deserve. No matter how much you love someone, you cannot fully define their worth. When we search for purpose and value in the lives around us, we run the risk of great disappointment and loss. It’s not their fault; they are only human.

Even when we recognize this truth, we still try to make our worth made manifest in the souls around us.

This is particularly true in my own life.


I mentioned previously that my advisor forgot my entire project. While he is human and has the right to forget these things, it is extremely disheartening to work on a novel concept for over a year and remain in the shadows. And as I saw each person talk about how their lab meetings went and how their data meetings were going and how their advisors actually had the time to go over their grants, I found myself growing more and more concerned.

Then my advisor told me that my images were not quite good enough.

This quickly went from being a valuable critique of my work to a downward spiral of self doubt. Maybe my advisor didn’t remember my project because I wasn’t a good enough biologist.



In such a case, there are two decisions that we can make: fall in to a pit of despair and doubt, or work your way out. I’m not proud to admit that for a solid week and a half I could not look at the letters STARD9 without feeling ashamed of my work. However, I knew that I could not get my PhD by hiding from my research.

But the mice were already dead.

I had to do the best I could with what I had.


After a month and a half of building off of my original projects, my remaining tissue samples, and a lot of support from my friends and family, I managed to complete my project. I did not have a lot, but I had enough to do my job. I got over myself, did my science, and found confidence in my work.

My work became important because I did my best with what I had.


It didn’t matter if I wasn’t at the level I wanted to be at. What mattered was that I was striving to be where I needed to be, and I did not let my lack of experience or know-how to stop me from striving to do my best work.

It all culminated in the CelluLART meeting, which I spoke of previously.



High power researchers thanked me for my work.

And while I loved knowing that I was considered valuable to the greater scientific community, it was the fact that I knew that I had done my best work, that I showed up on my own, and that I could be my own scientist that fueled my heart. The fact I received such high praises was a secondary award to the self-confidence I gained by doing my best with what I had.



It’s easy to say that we can make our work on this earth valuable to ourselves. However, what if there is something more difficult to prove, invisible to human heart, and yet all the more necessary for our souls?

Are our efforts really all that important to God?


Many of us are searching for something greater. Many of us are asking God for specific things. Many of us are trying our best to understand what God is doing in our lives, and we will do just about anything to make His Will known to us.

Silence.

So then we try something else.

And yet the silence remains.



I am a huge fan of Novenas, which are nine-day devotions in the Catholic tradition. I actually participated in two very well-established “miraculous” novenas. One was the 54-Day Miraculous Rosary Novena, and the other was to Saint Joseph. I asked for something very specific, something that God had already told me I would receive, something I believed with all of my heart I could make happen.

All I needed was for God to hear me.

All I needed was to prove my worth.



These novenas did not end with the answer to my prayer. They ended with a mouse having seizures and an invitations to participate in teaching Confirmation at ND. The answers were not like anything I asked for because they were seemingly coincidental and uninteresting, but they were answers.

Still. I was pissed at Jesus.

And boy did I let Him know it.


But when the angry tears stopped falling from my eyes in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I felt a pain that I knew all too well: self-doubt. Perhaps the reason why God did not answer my prayers with the most miraculous novenas I knew was because I had not prayed well enough. Perhaps I said the prayers out of order, or with an impure heart, or maybe I was not worth of the gifts God promised me.

Or maybe my needs weren’t as important as those of the world around me.

“One tear in the dropping rain
One voice in a sea of pain
Could the Maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breaking heart?”
~Hold My Heart, Tenth Avenue North


I just could not understand what I could do to be a better Catholic and earn what God promised me long ago in the Frassati House chapel and at SEEK2015.

Many of us feel this way when our prayers are not answered right away, or in the way that we predicted that they would be answered. We feel like God has forgotten us, or that He does not really want what will make us happy. Even people with seemingly unshakeable faith hit periods of dryness and hurt. However, that does not make their prayers any less valuable.

The gift is found in the waiting.

It is found by sitting in the silence and discovering that the answer was there all along.



When we pray, we bring what we can to the Lord, and He does the best with what we give Him. Now that may mean that there are some inconsistencies between His answers and our interpretations of our requests, but that does not mean that the answers never really came.

Just as I gave my best with what I had in the lab, so too did God do the best for me with what I had in my heart.



I will not share exactly what I prayed for in those Novenas, however, I will share what I received beyond the mouse and the invitation. The mouse seizures brought my lab forward, and gave me some closer friends that I would not have made otherwise. The invitation to Confirmation gave me a community of beautiful souls with open hearts and hands to hold during the Our Father in Mass at last.

Although I was asking for originally never came…

I received what I wanted all along: the love and reminder of my worth that I had forgotten.


No prayer is unimportant to God. He wants to listen, and He wants what is best for you. Maybe in the moment it feels like He is not listening, but I can assure you that He is always listening with loving ears. When He answers your prayers, He answers what is at the heart of our prayers. 

He gives us the best with what we have in the moment.


You do not need to do anything fancy. You do not need to go outside of who you are to be heard by our loving God. All you need to do is be willing to talk to Him. Be present in the space you are.

Do the best you can with what you have

And He’ll take care of the rest.

“You take my eyes off of the future
You lead my heart out of the past
You are the promise here in the moment
Where I find my rest
You are as good as it gets”
As Good As It Gets, Matt Maher


So remember Dear Readers: nothing you do is insignificant. It has value in the world, whether you can see it or not. Your life touches the lives of others, and it gives each person a greater purpose in this life. Most importantly, you are important to God. He wants to hear from you, and even if your prayers are not answered the way you expect them to be answered, that does not mean that you are not good enough.

You are good enough.

You are important.


You are loved.

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