Practising Medicine and Faith, With Salvationist Dr. Lucinda McQuarrie

For Women’s History Month, Salvationist is spotlighting inspiring Salvationist women from across Canada and Bermuda, so we're delighted to welcome Dr. Lucinda McQuarrie to the podcast. 

Dr. Lucinda is a lifelong Salvationist and a medical doctor in Langley, B.C. On this episode we talk about her faith journey—from being an officers’ kid, to her current ministry as a lay leader at The Salvation Army’s Willows Church and Family Life Centre. And we explore how she lives out her faith in her medical practice, and why her own experience of miraculous healing reminds her that God is in control. 

Meet four more inspiring Salvationist women: read article.

Transcript

Kristin Ostensen

This is the Salvationist podcast. I’m Kristin Ostensen. October is Women’s History Month, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than by interviewing inspiring Salvationist women. Lucinda McQuarrie definitely qualifies. She is a lifelong Salvationist and a doctor in Langley, B.C. On this episode we talk about her faith journey—from being an officers’ kid, to her current ministry as a lay leader at The Salvation Army’s Willows Church and Family Life Centre. And we explore how she lives out her faith in her medical practice, and why her own experience of miraculous healing reminds her that God is in control.

Now, to start us off, I'm wondering if you can tell me how you first got connected to the Army. 

Lucinda McQuarrie

Sure, I was born into the Army. So my parents met in Winnipeg quite a few years ago. And yeah, my mom was an officers’ child, and my dad had also grown up in the Army. And when I was two years old, they went off to training college, and so I've kind of moved around coast to coast with them, until we settled in B.C.

Kristin Ostensen

Nice. So obviously, grew up in the Army. I imagine you were involved in all the things as an officers’ child, but in terms of your own sort of faith journey, when did you take that step? When did you become a senior soldier, and what kind of led you to that place?

Lucinda McQuarrie

My faith journey actually begins in northern B.C., my parents’ very first appointment, I was, you know, like five years old, but I actually remember vividly just feeling the Holy Spirit, and it was during a time of prayer and the traditional mercy seat call. And I just remember, even at five years old, just being overcome with the Spirit and crying and praying and, yeah, accepting Jesus into my life then, and it's a good thing, because we've been through a lot over the many years since then. And yeah, I did commit to being a senior soldier when I was 14 years old. We were living in Halifax at the time, and it was a commitment that came out of a lot of thought and actually just being well rooted in Scripture, and I felt like I had had excellent teaching in The Salvation Army as a child and a young person, through Sunday school and junior soldiers and the senior soldiers prep classes—just having a good understanding of the basis of my salvation and my call, really, to be a soldier for Jesus.

Kristin Ostensen

No, that's great and wonderful that you had such a strong grounding. And thinking about the parallel to that in terms of the work that you do in your professional life: When did you know that you wanted to become a doctor, and how did you know that was the right path for you as well? Did that come as a sense of calling, I'm wondering?

Lucinda McQuarrie

I would say that it wasn't a direct, like, “God wants me to be a physician,” but it was this process. You know, in high school, everybody goes though, what are you going to be when you grow up? And so it really was more of a logical process for me that, you know, I really liked science. I always really liked science. And Bill Nye the Science Guy was one of my heroes.

Kristin Ostensen

Yes, love that show.

Lucinda McQuarrie

But I also really liked people, and so it was one of those like: “Oh, maybe I'll be a social worker, maybe I'll be a veterinarian,” and then just suddenly, one day I remember, like, “Oh, I could be a physician and kind of merge all of those things.” I really had to give it to God because I did not get into med school, first, second or third application. It was a long journey of really thinking, “Oh, if this isn't going to work out, now what am I going to do?” And my final application, I kind of just, applied just to UBC, because I was like, “I'm done with applying everywhere. I'm just going to apply to UBC and leave it with God.” And I also, that year, applied for the PDP program to be a teacher. I did get accepted into that, and I thought, “OK, I'm, you know, walking away from medicine.” And no, it didn't work out that way because I did get an acceptance that year. And so I was a bit shocked and surprised, but I know God's timing was there. God put me with some good friends during that medical school years. We studied together and grew together and talked about God together, and so, yeah, you know, his timing is always right.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, no, it's so true. And sometimes doors open and close and open again, and we don't know why at the time, but it creates this beautiful picture that becomes our lives. And so at what point did you decide that you wanted to go into being a maternity specialist?

Lucinda McQuarrie

Yeah, so officially, I am a specialist in family medicine, and so I do everything. I do maternity; I also do palliative care with my own patients when needed. But I do work at the maternity clinic here in Langley. And so that's kind of my, I don't know, side gig, although I incorporate it obviously, when my own patients are pregnant, I follow them through as well. Maternity care is, yeah, it's a special time in people's lives, and so it really is a blessing, and I still—like, at some births, things are just so beautiful that I still get teary-eyed, you know? And sometimes it can be really stressful for people. And so, in a way, it's good to feel like I can be there to make a difference in some people's journeys when they need, and so, yeah, it's something I've always enjoyed.

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, absolutely. And I think so many of us would be able to look in our own experience and say, What a difference having a compassionate, kind family physician can make it our lives. And you know, and I know as a doctor, you're not out there sort of preaching to the masses, but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how your Christian faith influences your work as a doctor.

Lucinda McQuarrie 

It is an ongoing challenge in terms of how to incorporate my faith into practice, and it's something that I sometimes do really well at and sometimes do poorly at because I'm human, and I focus on who I am rather than who God is. But I definitely recognize that God is with me. I feel that some cases and some patients definitely require extra grace, that there are a lot of challenges in dealing with a variety of people. And so I do know there's times in my day, you know, you see a particular patient or concern that you know they're in for, where I just have to pause, breathe, pray and just allow God to give me the strength and ability to do my best in that moment. And sometimes—I mean, I've had opportunities to pray with patients. I do have a couple of signs—not really signs but markers that patients who are Christian will recognize that I'm a Christian. I've had a pendant with a cross on it. I have on my stethoscope a little marker of a cross. And so people who are familiar with those things will recognize them, comment on them, and it leads to some discussion. More difficult is when I know my patients aren't Christian, but I know that they actually need spiritual care, and so trying to bridge that conversation about what are their spiritual beliefs and what things can help strengthen and encourage them beyond their physical body, which they've come to talk to me about, but I—you know, God didn't make us only a body. We have a soul and a spirit. And trying to figure out the differences of those is an ongoing point of interest. But yeah, so body, mind and spirit, and how do I care for that whole person in a really holistic way, would be my goal. And so when I am able, I like to incorporate that.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, no, that makes sense. As you were saying, we aren't just physical bodies, and it's all connected and it all plays into each other. So having that more holistic approach is so important. And as you mentioned a little earlier, being a doctor can be stressful, and sometimes, you know, you have situations where someone's health is on the line, or the outcomes aren't what you would hope for, or you mentioned, in fact, you also do some palliative care. So I'm wondering if you can talk a bit about, for yourself, how does your faith ground you in those kinds of challenging situations?

Lucinda McQuarrie

I mean, it is always good to pray, no matter what the circumstance, but definitely when things are stressful, just praying that I would have strength is a good thing. But it can be challenging, you know, when people have complex medical issues, not just one, but many, and that overlap between body, physical and mind, mental, and then recognizing, OK, there's also this spiritual dimension and how to help people be as well as possible—like, you know, not just healthy, but well, because there are many things that I can't fix. And it is good to know God as the healer. And so, you know, I can't fix everything, but I do believe in healing, personally, having been healed of a very minor shoulder injury, but literally knowing God healed it, you know, does give me faith sometimes, to hope for things that are impossible and so. Yeah, so—

Kristin Ostensen 

Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Lucinda McQuarrie

About my shoulder? 

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah.

Lucinda McQuarrie 

So, many years ago, when I was in university, I did play rugby, and I had a shoulder injury, and I did not have full range of motion in my shoulder, and I could not sleep on that side. And I, you know, did try the normal things in terms of range of motion activities and trying to restrengthen it. But it was going on for quite a while—I'm thinking probably not quite a year, but many months. And at that time, I was attending Cariboo Hill Temple. We were having a time during service to pray for healing for someone else, and a large group of us were at the front laying hands on this person, and someone put their hand on my shoulder, and I felt a very intense heat in my shoulder that I was like, you know, just recognizing, like, “Oh, her hand feels so nice,” like, it was just this warm, deep—I don't know how to even describe it. And then recognizing that night, I was like, “Oh, my shoulder's not hurting me.” And then I slept on that side. And then I was like, “Oh, I can completely move my shoulder now.” And I didn't have full range of motion—like, I couldn't lift it really overhead—and I had full range. And so it was just, like, a “byproduct” healing, because God's Spirit was there. Nobody was praying for me, but recognizing and hearing since, in other people's stories of healing, this description of this warmth and this heat, I was like, “Yeah, that's what it is.” I can't explain it. I'm not in charge of healing, but I feel, I don't know, encouraged by it. And I can't explain why some really big things that are very important, God doesn't heal, and yet, somehow God healed my little shoulder, right? Yeah, I don't understand, but I don't think we can understand God. I just know that it was God.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, what a beautiful story. And it's true, it is a difficulty, and I do imagine, too, as a doctor, that kind of, you know, why did it work, or why did someone experience healing this time and not that time? That would be a challenge, maybe, to reconcile sometimes.

Lucinda McQuarrie 

And, you know, I think ultimately knowing that God is in control—and this kind of goes back to what your question was about in the very beginning—that does strengthen me when things don't go well. And I did recently have a patient die, who I have for years been trying to help with complex medical and mental health concerns. She was in hospital for quite a while, and I didn't actually mention to you—my group, we do our own inpatient hospital care as well. So when our patients are in hospital, people from our family or physicians from our family practice group, we take care of them rather than the hospitalist. So, so seeing her through this kind of complete journey—unfortunately, she got a very unrelated illness in hospital and passed away. And it's one of those like, Why? Why the years of such struggle for her, and then the hard work of trying to make life better for her, for her to pass away? And there are patients like that—that, literally, I feel grief over their loss of life, but I also know God is in control. And so, you know, she is in a better place. She was a Christian, and she is at peace now. And so this unanticipated illness, while it ended her life, also ended her suffering—her, you know, physical suffering. So, yeah, God is in control no matter what is going on.

Kristin Ostensen 

Yeah. How beautiful to have that sort of assurance to ground you, and to ground patients as well, when they are patients of faith. And, you know, she was very lucky to have you, I'm sure, in her life. 

Lucinda McQuarrie 

Thanks. 

Kristin Ostensen 

And thinking sort of about the other, not the other part of your life, but thinking about your involvement with The Salvation Army—I understand you are involved in leadership there, and I'm wondering if you could tell me a bit about that, and how did that come about, and what's your role right now? 

Lucinda McQuarrie

Sure. So, oh, I don't know—like a decade or so ago, the leadership team at The Willows asked if I wanted to join the team. I don't really know what they were thinking, but I did agree. And you know, at that point The Willows was fairly young. I mean, we still are as a corps, fairly young. But we were meeting in a church, sorry, in a school gym where we rented space. And so we were very much a mobile church, where we loaded all of our stuff into a truck every week and unloaded it and just used the school as our meeting place of worship, and had Sunday school. But we didn't really have places for mid-week service or fellowship, and we did at that time have quite a lot of small home groups, which was the way that we stayed connected through the week. But it was always this feeling of, like, What next? What next? And so, really, you know, coming on at that point and being part of the conversation, like, What next? Where are we going to settle? How does God want to grow us and use us? And how do we stay true to some of the vision that the officers that founded The Willows kind of had, felt was our calling, right? And so, being part of that conversation and sharing ideas and feeling, actually, I really did feel God's Spirit giving me the strength and ability to do the things that I did at that time. I ended up kind of taking over organization—I don't know the right words—of the discipleship ministries, so kind of small group and we ran Alpha. And just having the time to commit to that, I actually did reduce my medical workload a little bit to accommodate. And I just, yeah, felt God's Spirit giving me ideas and kind of the strength to do these things. And so it was an encouraging time in my life as well. And then being part of kind of the planning committee once Covid hit, and Covid left us without any meeting space. Of course, we didn't necessarily need one for a little while, but it was this opportunity of like, “Oh, the school doesn't want us coming back into their space now, and where do we go next?” And being part of kind of that process was good to see—like, what are our strengths as a church and a congregation of people? What do our people need? What are we interested in? What are our abilities? So, looking at kind of our gifts and interests of where God was putting us as a church, we came out with a family life centre concept. And so the Life Centre is a combination of our church, but also ministry into the community. And, yeah, so it's been very great to be part of that and see it grow and develop into something very physical.

Kristin Ostensen

Yeah, what does that, how does that ministry look now today, with that location and that sort of vision?

Lucinda McQuarrie  

So we, interestingly, I do believe, as well, that God gave us this location. We had checked out a few other locations to lease along the way, and this one kind of just came to us. I think the realtor we were working with had heard—I might have some of my facts slightly wrong—but had heard this space was looking for someone, and it just so happened that the owner of the property had had some prior family links with The Salvation Army in terms of having received services from them, and also then wanted to give back and help us. So the space required very little immediate renovation and I am hoping down the road, because our church has continued to grow, and our services have continued to grow, our space, I do think our space is going to need to change down the road, right,

Kristin Ostensen 

A good problem to have.

Lucinda McQuarrie

Yeah, we were able to kind of move in and launch with minimal effort, and it was like, God just gave us that space. And it is in downtown Langley, and so it acts as a good service point for many people. And then now, throughout the week, we have services for our community and for our church body, and, you know, continue to hope and pray about what is next. And so my current role at The Willows, I am on the pastoral care team, and I've kind of just wrapped my time as, we kind of had called it “church life advisor,” which is kind of the equivalent of the CSM, and so I've kind of just wrapped that time, but I'm continuing on the pastoral care team, really hoping to encourage the future of, what does God want for our church and how do we get there with each other? 

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah, no, it looks like there's so much sort of growth happening. It's so exciting to be a part of that. And I'm wondering, on a personal level, what makes that ministry meaningful for you? Are there aspects of your ministry at The Willows that are particularly meaningful? 

Lucinda McQuarrie

I guess kind of three things. One is I really do value community, and so being part of a church body, I am part of a community, and doing things together, be it studying God's Word, or, you know, having a fun night, or doing service or ministry together, I think is important to me, and I think that's important to God, because he created us to be in community and wants us to meet together, and so I enjoy kind of being plugged in there. So it's a personal benefit, really. The other thing is, I have just enjoyed studying God's Word and learning new things over the years, and that really never stops—like, there is no way that anybody can ever say, “Oh, I understand it all now.” 

Kristin Ostensen  

Yeah. For sure. 

Lucinda McQuarrie

And so God is always revealing new things and teaching new things, even through simple Scriptures that have spoken to me over many years, God still brings them new, and it's like, “Hey, remember this? But now here, there's more,” right? And so I remember even a few years ago, this thing about, like, Oh, I'm an adult. I've grown up in the church all my life where we are taught to love our neighbour, and maybe now I'm finally getting to know what that means, right? And it's such a simple thing, but there's always growth of, like, how do you love your neighbour, truly? Right? Not just be nice to your neighbour, but love love them, right? And so, being part of church, I think that discipleship focus is important to me because, to me, that incorporates God's Scripture and so trying to encourage—and I I've mentioned prior, you know, I feel like a big part of my commitment to God is actually the result of good teaching as a child and young person, having good teaching to really ground you in your faith, I think is very important. It was very important to me, and it did keep me grounded when I was in university, really, actually questioning my faith. There were two periods, one during my undergrad and one during medical school, where I was very much questioning my faith and kind of feeling like I couldn't believe in this, but it actually was Scripture that kind of solidified the, No, this is worth believing in, and that it is actually reasonable to believe in this, not irrational, right? But without good teaching, I think it's easy to just kind of walk away because there's no foundation. 

Kristin Ostensen  

It's true, and we've actually had a whole series of late on Gen Z and how we disciple and teach the next generation. So even as you're saying that, I was thinking, Yeah, this is something that we need to talk about, reflecting on our own experience, but also, how do we then provide that for the next generation? 

Lucinda McQuarrie  

Yeah, like, the word “apologetics” has kind of become a bad word, right? But in reality, it's because of apologetics that I maintained my faith and so, I mean, there obviously is a personal relationship with Jesus that happens, but when you're questioning, it's good to actually have facts to fall back on.

Kristin Ostensen 

Yeah, oh, for sure, that makes sense. And thinking about The Salvation Army more broadly—of course, you've been in The Salvation Army a long time, sort of from day one. But what inspires you about The Salvation Army, and particularly being a woman and a leader in the Army today?

Lucinda McQuarrie

It's interesting. You know, I think I've been very blind to just the concept of—I'm trying to think of the right words—but the concept of being a woman, I have never felt like the weaker sex. I have never experienced any significant or kind of harmful words or behaviours because of being a woman. And I do think part of that is because growing up in The Salvation Army I had, I will say, strong and powerful—I still have a strong and powerful grandmother and a strong and powerful mother, and that just was kind of a normal thing to me. And so, yeah, and that is because of being in The Salvation Army, where women are respected and treated as equals. And I know, historically, you know, there's a lot of controversy about the role of women, even in The Salvation Army—you know, “the captain and his missus,” right? Just those sorts of things. But I think I came in a generation a little bit past that, where I could recognize that, yeah, it didn't really apply to me. Women were well supported, and when they weren't, I saw women who were able to, you know, speak out and make change. In terms of The Salvation Army more generally, I do feel inspired just that we continue to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And so, going, you know, from our roots till now, there's been a lot of change in The Salvation Army, but there's been a lot of change in our world, and I think what we're doing is adapting to recognize: How are the needs of our world changing, and how can we be the hands and feet of Jesus, and not just meeting physical needs? And, so glad that the word “salvation” has continued with us over the years because, really, the whole reason we meet the physical needs is because people need the spiritual salvation, right? And so, yeah, we take a lot for granted, especially growing up in the Army. But if we can take the posture of Jesus kneeling down to clean people's feet, it is a good place to be, and hopefully, you know, The Salvation Army can continue to be in that posture, serving others.

Kristin Ostensen 

Yeah, it reminds me of what you said earlier about, you know, how do I love my neighbour? And we're so familiar with that Scripture, but that continual spiritual work of figuring out what that means and living what that means and doing that as The Salvation Army especially.

Lucinda McQuarrie 

Yeah, yeah.

Kristin Ostensen

Well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a real pleasure to meet you and hear about your work, both as a doctor and at The Willows.

Lucinda McQuarrie 

Thank you very much. It's been great to chat with you today.

Kristin Ostensen

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Salvationist podcast. We’ve interviewed four more inspiring women from across the territory for Women’s History Month—find a link to the article in the show notes. For more episodes of the podcast, visit Salvationist.ca/podcast.