A year of wilderness - part 1

 

'For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.'                    2 Timothy 1:7                                                                                                                               

It took me a while to realise that I am in the wilderness. 

I finished 2019 on a high. Passed my fellowship exams, had a great time in Prince Charles Hospital functioning almost like a consultant doing most operations independently, spending more time with my wife and kids and just being relaxed most of the time. And then I started the transplant fellowship at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in February this year. That's when I started on a slippery slide toward stress and anxiety, depression, relentless self introspection and scrutiny, constant feeling of inadequacy and failure. 

I had thought that this job is many years in making - how God has guided me to PAH since I was a resident in Sunshine Coast, assisting in my first ever retrieval with Prof Fawcett and Nick Butler (he was SET 5 then) when they came up to Nambour Hospital, assisting Andrew Robson when he came up to Cairns for retrieval and then again at Royal Brisbane Hospital, meeting Kellee Slater in core course and forming a connection, driving past PAH everyday on my way to work in the past 2 years and having a prompting in my spirit that God would lead me there one day. I had heard that PAH is tough place to work in, like a modern day 'Babylon', where the culture is toxic and unfriendly. I would never have imagined that I would one day work there, if it weren't for the assurance I had in my heart that that's where God wanted me to be. 

I must admit that before I started, I had thought that I would be like Daniel in Babylon in the bible, experiencing triumph in a hostile environment because I believe in God. I thought I was 'good enough' for PAH. After all, I did excel in Royal Brisbane. And all the stories I have heard about people failing in PAH, I thought it must be because they just 'weren't good enough'.

Ah.. What a naive thought. I could not have been more wrong in my life.

Six months into the job, I was more depressed than I have ever been in my career. I have never felt so lousy about myself. I found myself very fearful of certain individuals, fearful of what they thought of me and the influence they have over my future. Whenever I was with them, I became paralysed. The skills and gifts that I have just became dormant and inoperative, and I looked like a dead chicken in front of them, which further fueled their distaste of me. So many times I ended up saying yes to people when I really wanted to say no, because their approval matters so much to me. Often when something happened which triggered painful memories, or something that someone said, my entire soul just goes into a messy tangle and downward spiral which would take days for me to get out from.

For the entire time, I could hardly focus when I was with my family because of my preoccupation with myself. I was worried about my future. I thought my career is over. Dr Kanagarajah had told me many times: 'this is meant to be a fun year for you. You have just finished your exams, you are not planning to do transplant so everything is learning exercise for you. You should enjoy.' 

But I could not.

I did not realise these were all symptoms of a bigger spirit at play. And now I realised what it is -  the spirit that's at work behind all the symptoms.

It's the spirit of intimidation.

Just imagine a really nice big house with brand new furnishings in it. But there is a hole in the roof. When things are going well, the house is a really nice place to live in. But then there is a thunderstorm, and everything in the house gets soaked and dirty. And then you have to spend all the energy and effort to clean everything up and replace the furnitures. When it's all done, the next storm comes, and the house is in a big mess again. And you clean everything up again. Only for the next storm to undo everything. You just keep cleaning the house and fixing the damage. At some point you are going to become depleted, spent and exhausted. You might even lose hope on the situation. 

You see the root problem here is the hole in the roof, not the dirty furniture. If only you would fix the hole in the roof, none of the above would happen. Likewise, the root problem in my life was the spirit of intimidation. I felt intimidated by certain toxic individuals at PAH, and in doing so, I gave them the power and authority over me. But all I did for the problem was trying to fix the symptoms (the dirty furniture) - the negative feelings, the fear, the depression and anxiety. I tried to exercise more, sleep better, read my bible, fast, practise positive thinking, visualization etc. And all the while, I ignored the root problem. So each time when I think I have got over it, the next storm comes, and everything gets undone and I go into depression. The cycle continues. 

Next I will share about how i got myself into a mess and allow the spirit of intimidation to get a hold of me.