JUNE STORIES

Is Passion Enough?

 

by: Taylor Johnson
Oceanside, CA 
Posted: 5.19.2008 

As far as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a doctor. Never really went through the whole astronaut, teacher, or singer stage. Recently, my mom told me that when I was only a year old, she remembers holding me one night and telling me that I could be whatever I wanted to be...that I could be a teacher, a lawyer or a doctor. She says that I looked right into her eyes like I actually understood what she was saying. Now, I am a junior bio-chem major at Point Loma Nazarene University, studying to become a doctor someday.

Since coming to Point Loma, I began to think that it isn't enough to just "really want something". In high school, a lot of the teachers and adults there tell you that you can do anything, become anything, succeed at anything. While this is inspirational, I didn't think that it was necessarily true. Or at least, that is what I thought. Coming to an atmosphere where a lot of my peers have a strong science back ground, where people had doctors run in there family and where no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many hours I put into studying, people were always performing significantly better than me, I began to question...is having passion enough?

Being a physician is a noble profession. It comes with great prestige, respect and finanical stability. None of these are reasons why I want to become a doctor. When I look at the very core of who I am and the reasons why I want to be a physician, I am attracted to another component of the profession - compassion. Serving the underserved. I realized that this is what I have and that it came from my life experiences. I am the oldest of 5 children and two of my siblings have neurological disorders. My brother Gabe is autistic and my sister Sydney has recently been diagnosed with narcolepsy with schizophrenic symptoms. It has been very burdensom on my family and it has affected each one of us individually. Through it, I know that this is what the Lord has called me to do. To empathize with people with similiar situations or ones that are even worse than mine. I care so much about the broken, the marginalized, the wounded --the forgotten in our society and populations abroad.

So to answer my own question, yes. Passion is enough. Sure, I still need to work hard, pass a few tests and to actually get into med school, but passion is my vehicle. Jesus has given it to me, who am I to quit and say that I am not qualified when there have been so many times that His calling for my life has been so distinct? So I guess that you can say that my passion is to be compassion. Using medicine to be close to those who the weary. 

 

Hunger for Passion

by: Andrew Cartwright
Indianapolis, IN

For me, there can be no passion where there is no love, especially a love for other people. Passionate love comes in many forms, but the bottom line is that passion requires giving yourself in some fashion to another human being. I’m at a point in my life (grad school at Midwestern University) where I feel like all I’m doing with my education, my inspiration, my living is only to help myself. I don’t need to say that in this present form, I feel very little passion; I am an automotion who gets up in the morning, goes to school, works, then sits in front of the computer or television, NUMB! But, I HUNGER for passion and I’m in the process of branching out, even if it means leaving behind a sure thing “career-wise”. I’m looking into both the Peace Corps and Teach for America, both organizations in which I can love other people who need it, both places where I can rediscover my passion. I don’t want a “sure thing”… I want something real and dangerous, full of pain perhaps but equally full of opportunities for love. That’s passion for me…

 

What Would You Suffer For?

by: Justin Kenyon
Clovis, CA

Passion means to suffer. So when I am asked about what I am passionate about, I see it as a question of “ what would you suffer for because you love it so much?” I would suffer for the kids and children in the urban and inner cities of our world. I would suffer for the pain and poverty in the lives of people living in the unseen borders of our world. I would suffer to the point of pain so we might open our eyes to the oppression going on in the cities on earth. A brilliant man once said there were 3 things to do that held weighty significance; act justly, love mercy, and make humbly with God. Injustice comes to those living in poverty and oppressed by the superior powers by our world. May you and I stand up for those in need, enter the city, and walk out hand in hand, loving, not fighting, for the oppression to end, justice to be enacted, and mercy to be restored. We can!