Surrendering Our Isaac — with Colleen Umali
Season 1, Episode 26 | Originally aired on January 26, 2020
About the episode
"I think it's a prayer that a lot of us Catholics have — 'Oh Lord, help me to trust you more, help me to give you more of my life' — [but] in asking that, we actually have to put in the effort and actually do the work to give ourselves to God."
Colleen Umali's plan was simple enough: medical school. But the Lord had other plans and started to ask her to give more of herself. While Colleen was able to give her 'yes' in different aspects of her life, the one thing she still held on tightly to was her career and future plans. Through this process and God's pursuit, Colleen saw that once she surrendered to Him, He made everything work in her life. She landed a job at STEMCELL Technologies and even found a way to integrate some of her other interests, like photography, into her current work. In our conversation, we talk about Colleen's faith journey, the unnecessary conflict between faith and science, and how she's seen her feminine genius grow throughout her own life.
Listen to the episode
Meet Colleen Umali
Lifelong Catholic and future dog mom Colleen Umali has a deep passion for science, photography, God, sunsets, and fried chicken. From a young age, Colleen had her life carefully planned out (labelled lifeplan.doc on her computer) but God had other ideas. It was a rollercoaster ride which led her to the biotechnology company STEMCELL Technologies, where she currently spends her time raising baby kidneys for research. When not in lab, you can find her exploring the beauty of the Lower Mainland. Colleen loves being outside because it is where she feels God’s presence the most. With her camera in hand, she likes to suffer through hikes with steep elevation changes for the view and not the exercise. Colleen aspires to travel the world, loves to spend weekends binge watching Netflix shows, gets overexcited about food, and makes high pitched squeaks when puppies and babies are around.