What I Learned From Chemistry

In putting together a syllabus for a chemistry class, I came across a realization which I have been slowly learning, but which I think would be rather helpful if we were each told this upon entering adulthood.

Learning chemistry can be frustrating. You can’t just read the text and immediately solve any problem. It takes practice to learn how to solve problems which means trying and failing, again and again, before the concept clicks in your mind. You don’t learn as much when you read, or when you hear a lecture, as in wrestling with, and working through the problems; in exercising your mental faculties and having your understanding tested.

In preparing for chemistry, students need to know what’s ahead so that when it starts to get difficult, they won’t be surprised. In fact, it’s important for them to know that they will have to attempt problems multiple times, and they may have to re-read the text, talk to a classmate or me, and really spend time thinking about the concepts before they’ll make progress. It is in the struggle where learning takes place.  So when facing difficulty, chemistry students need not be discouraged, but can recognize it as a necessary part of the learning process.

I wish someone had told me this growing up. Maybe they did, and I just didn’t understand. I remember the day when, as a child, I realized that life was not mostly play interspersed with a bit of chores, but the other way around. Likewise, if we could approach life expecting adversity, recognizing it for what it is, we could replace discouragement with a drive to persevere. I honestly think anyone can learn chemistry, given enough perseverance. Cannot we then overcome any challenge in life if we press on?

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

-The Apostle Paul, Philippians 3:13-15

In other news,  I just started on a new drug today:

Journal Entry Day 1 – Tried the new meds today. No progress so far. Splitting headache, not sure if there’s a connection. Chocolate supplies: ok for the moment. Morale: so-so, may need a session with the kitty.

He is Risen

Good morning! We have hope today. Sorrow and mourning are banished, for today is filled with light and hope and peace. Our Savior came to us once, to save a dying world, and it is for this reason we remember that He will come again.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”

-Luke 24:1-7

Let us not fix our eyes upon death and this dying world, but on the Resurrection and the Life: Jesus Christ.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

-The Apostle John, 1 John 4:9-10

Afterlife

Sleep has been difficult. I spent about six weeks without sleeping properly, awake 24 hours, asleep for 6, awake 36 hours, asleep for 14, wash, rinse, repeat. I return to normal, then get off again. I get a cold, or feel so depressed I don’t want to face the day. Right now it’s like I have to beat my body into submission, medicating myself to sleep at a night, and dragging myself awake every morning with the fear that the cycle will start again. Sometimes it seems like all I do is eat, sleep, and shower -maybe I get dressed if it’s a good day. Why am I telling you this? Well, friends keep asking me what’s been going on. This is it. Things haven’t changed. My health hasn’t improved. I will get insurance soon, but I don’t know how long we can afford it, it’s not really leaving any money to pay for actual medical bills. I feel like I’m in a desert right now… it’s so dry, I’m parched, looking for relief. The barren ground stretches to each horizon, endless, empty, and bleak.

I haven’t really rested in a long time. I have escaped with sleep or distractions, but I haven’t rested. My back has been worse lately  -how do you say you’re not fine? I wish I could tell you  how God is healing me, maybe one day I will. Right now, He’s not. That’s ok. I don’t know what He’s doing, but I trust His wisdom. I don’t feel good about life right now, but that’s ok. I will wait through this time. We want resolution to come so swiftly, but I will wait one more day. Each day in the desert is a day I can grow, if I admit my weakness and ask for His strength.

Maybe you are stuck in that in-between time, waiting. Maybe you feel you can’t really say what’s going on, or be honest about how bad it is. I think it’s ok not to have an immediate answer. Don’t give up hope because your wait is long. The wait is not in vain so long as you wait upon the Lord.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

-The Prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 40:28-31

Perhaps waiting can be active. Not the mere passing of time between a question and its answer, but anticipating, with eagerness, the outcome. What if waiting was the time in which we really lived?

I’ve tasted fire I’m ready to come alive
I can’t just shut it up and fake that I’m alright
I’m ready now
I’m not waiting for the afterlife

I’ll Let it burn the way the sunlight burns my skin
The way I feel inside, the way the day begins
I’m ready now
I’m not waiting for the other side
I’m ready now, I’m ready now

Cause everyday the world is made
A chance to change But I feel the same
And I wonder
Why would I wait till I die to come alive?
I’m ready now
I’m not waiting for the afterlife

I still believe we could live forever
You and I we begin forever now
Forever now
Forever

I still believe in us together
You and I we’re here together now
Forever now
Forever now
Or never now

Cause everyday the world is made
A chance to change But I feel the same
And I wonder
Why would I wait till I die to come alive?
I’m ready now
I’m not waiting for the afterlife

-Switchfoot, Afterlife

The Given Good

In the course of a conversation with a friend, she mentioned how much a certain passage of Perelandra (second in C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy) has changed her life. It’s when the Green Lady, the “Eve” of Venus, expecting her mate, instead meets Ransom, the protagonist. She says he was not the good she expected, but the good that was intended for her. Just because he is not the person she expected to see, does not mean this good is any less than the expected good, but could, in fact, be far greater.

‘What you have made me see,’ answered the Lady, ‘is as plain as the sky, but I never saw it before. Yet it has happened every day. One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before — that the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished — if it were possible to wish — you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.

-The Green Lady, Perelandra

This is not what I expected my life to be. I try not to be particular as  I know that in pursuing my own plans, I might miss something greater. However, I have a rough idea of where I would like to be in terms of career and situation. What I didn’t realize was I had an underlying expectation. As any young person would, I assumed I would have general good health for another 20 years at least. I imagined all sorts of pleasant courses my life could take, but they all involved walking.

I struggle with accepting my situation as “good”. Could this be a gift? Really? I realize I have asked God repeatedly to do whatever it takes to make me the person He wants me to be. I have asked to be closer to Him, and let Him be the center of my life; to die to myself and live for Him. This death is most merciless… yet ultimately merciful. Perhaps He is using this experience to answer my prayer. I cannot understand what God’s purpose is fully, but I trust Him that it is good. It is good and better than what I would have planned for myself.

We might search for an explanation for suffering and never find it. When we don’t have an answer, it’s easy to dwell on the expected good, and in doing so, spoil the given good. “If only my life had turned out as I wanted it” we lament, and the longer we desire that which we can’t have, the more our desire consumes us and we are set on being miserable. It is important to recognize that while unexpected,  suffering is a gift. While it is the result of a fallen world, it is a gift insofar as  God uses it for good. It does not escape God’s notice, but is allowed only in accordance with His good and perfect will. Also, we must accept that which has been given us, and seek to understand the good that it is, rather than waste away wishing circumstances were otherwise.

You have made me see that it is I, I myself, who turn from the good expected to the given good. Out of my own heart I do it. One can conceive a heart which did not: which clung to the good it had first thought of and turned the good which was given it into no good.

-The Green Lady, Perelandra