“It is our stories that make us human.”In medical school, I learned all the technical details about heart transplant. I studied the medical criteria that makes you a candidate, the drugs required post-transplant, and the labs and physical symptoms to monitor. Yet, what I did not yet learn were the stories. Those stories came later in medical internship and residency. I met the real people and learned their stories of love and loss behind the words “heart transplant.” We sometimes fool ourselves as a culture to believe that medical science can solve all the problems of the “heart” with just a surgery or a medication. However, even when we cannot know all the stories behind the weathered faces that we encounter, it changes our own humanity to acknowledge that there is a story there. It changes how we are present to the facts, how we open to listen, and how we honor time. It is our stories that make us human. In sharing those stories, we can also heal the heart.

My friend, Sonja Greene-Smith, shares her remarkable and inspiring story of growing up with heart problems and eventually needing a heart transplant. She presents her story of faith, hope, and love. She asks us to tap into all the same things that got her through the challenges.“My fear is nothing compared to my faith,” Sonja tells us.Listen to her story.“What a thing looks like is not always what it is.”Hope inspires hope. Faith inspires faith. Love inspires love.

Let her story inspire you.

Recorded: Fri Aug 10, 2018

Interview by Dr. Joel Ying.“People of passion and purpose, doing interesting things, living the present moment.”LivingthePresentMoment.com/podcastshow