Dear readers,
I wonder if you once had a childhood dream? Did you want to be a ballerina? A fire fighter? A superhero?
I wanted to be a teacher. I loved learning as a child, and I still do love learning! And I loved teaching others which made me always Feel Smart, lol.
The Miracle of Knowing Your Calling
From a young age I have been teaching others about God. When I was in kindergarten, I had a friend named Christine. I don't even remember why, but one day during recess I was telling her about Heavenly Father, how he lives in the sky, how we can pray to him and that we can always tell him anything. She acted really weird for a five year old. She put her play hat over her face and hid it from me. I had to lift up her hat to check that she wasn't crying. When she wasn't crying, I repeated myself, asking, "Are you listening Christine? Can you hear me?"
I knew that teaching was my calling.
And Heavenly Father has blessed me with many opportunities to teach throughout my years. My first calling within The Church when I turned 18 was Sunday School Teacher. And because my birthday is in December, I was teaching the same class that I had attended as a student just a few weeks ago.
At 19 years of age, exactly one month after my birthday, I was teaching in the Philippines as a missionary of Jesus Christ. I was teaching the gospel to people who would hide their faces from me, again.
When I returned at 20 years of age, I was called to be a seminary teacher.
When I got married at 21 years of age and moved to Adelaide, the Lord saw fit for me to reinstate my calling as seminary teacher.
When I moved to Sydney near one year later I was called as Primary Music Leader (best calling ever), which is basically just teaching hymns to the children.
I knew that teaching was my calling but I realised late in life that it was not my dream.
Rewind.
The Miracle of Personal Revelation
When I was 18 years old I was sitting one day in the University of Sydney at a desk during orientation day. Everyone in that tutorial room sitting with them were aspiring to be high school teachers. And as I sat there, I saw my whole life set out before me and for the first time in my life, felt unsure about my decision. I remember thinking, "I do not want to do this for the rest of my life." After the orientation I left for home and pondered and prayed about if I should continue the course or serve a mission by next year.
Eventually, I threw all the pros out the window and decided that I didn't want to be a teacher like I had when I was child. I was going to serve a mission and then figure myself out later.
And as I walked through the mission fields and realised how much people suffered in health, I knew that I wanted to get into the medical field.
So I started a paramedicine degree in Sydney, which I absolutely loved (still love learning) continued it in Adelaide, had a bad mental health year and needed everything to stop to focus on family, health, and my marriage.
And for a while now, the Spirit kept gently telling me that I need still need to go out there and fulfil my potential in this life. And during this whole pandemic season, I started to listen.
One day while at work at the hospital, I realised that I had stopped wanting to be a paramedic. I realised that I no longer saw myself doing what they do, as important and interesting it may be. I know because of my mission that I wanted to work in the medical and health field, but I also wanted to obtain a profession that I feel would have the greatest impact on the world.
And that led me to wanting to become a doctor. I prayed and prayed and pondered about this. I had deep conversation with Heavenly Father, I told him, "Heavenly Father, I know I'm a smart cookie, but I'm not THAT much of a smart cookie." (Pretty deep, huh? lol). I said, "Heavenly Father, I am going to go for this, and I feel that this is right for me. Are you going to help me?"
And personal revelation taught me that The Lord Loves Effort, but He can only help me as much as I can help myself. Meaning that, if I thought that being a paramedic, and studying to be a paramedic was hard, studying to be a doctor and being a doctor will be much, much, harder. I knew that I will have to work harder than I've ever worked in my entire life.
And this happened around the time I was having meaningful conversations with my dearest friend, Sariah Brunt, who has a business focussed on personal development called Women Who Win. She invited me to a private group where she personally coached and taught us how to build strong and powerful minds to reach our goals. My goal specifically -- ace the UCAT, and get into medical school.
Universal Clinical Admission Test. It is THE test that ones sits (those without undergraduate degrees) to get into medical school in Australia / UK. And you have to score pretty high as it is very competitive. It has five subtests, all of which are not designed to be easy, and I had to study some of these topics from scratch.
Blessings through the ashes.
I did not get the result that Sariah and I aimed for.
And I have to tell you, that I am really grateful for that. If I had gotten that high score and began studying as a doctor this semester, let me tell you, I would not have survived one week. (Probably).
Instead, I am studying a Bachelor's Degree of Medical Science, (it's a fancy science degree that gets you no career whatsoever) and this in itself is really hard. We are in second week now, and I am struggling with one or two or three topics, maybe all four if I really want to be hard on myself, lol, but my progression in the last two weeks has increased so much I am amazed at my own achievements. And the more that I study this topic, the more I realised how unprepared I was to go straight into medical school. It is better that I finish this degree, or at least ONE degree before I start medical school, probably.
I had gotten used to not living up to my potential. I had gotten used to the kind of life where the only thing that I have to really push myself is to get up for work in the morning -- work which brought income mainly for leisure, because we weren't renting until recently.
I had been suffocating myself in the need to stay right where I am rather than leave my comfort zone. And my potential, I feel over time, was being slowly wiped out by my own weak mind. And my confidence in myself, and my drive, and my will to do great things, had somehow died.
Let me put it this way.
Not so long ago, the Australian bushfires rummaged throughout our country and we experienced devastating losses. In comparison (a very, very, almost blasphemic comparison), I had lost all my confidence in myself.
But, look here.
Scroll through this website for more inspiring images from nature. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-01/natural-bushfire-recovery-underway-binna-burra,-blue-mountains/11916742?nw=0
There is evidence of regrowth in areas affected by the fire. And maybe, this little plant, despite weather conditions, despite pollution, despite being reduced to ash, will continue to seek the sun and one day flower all over and be overwhelmingly beautiful.
And maybe, one day, if I keep maintaining my strong and powerful mind, I will achieve my dream of being a doctor.
(I don't know anything about nature, but my bet is that this tree will flower completely again way before I finish my studies at university, lol).
Written with love,
Eliza.