It Was Right!

I’ve been a little quiet on here recently. There is a reason for the silence.

My husband graduated from seminary just over a week ago!

So, why has that made me silent for so long? Well, graduation was in Arlington, TX. Since we had to make the drive anyway, we thought we would go a little early and enjoy a little vacation time to celebrate. And we had no Internet. So, we really took the time off. It was nice!

But I digress.

The point of this post is not to explain my blog absence. Instead, I want to shed a bit of light on why graduation was such a huge deal.

Our journey to Doug’s MDiv started nearly twelve years ago. And that’s only because our attempt to start three years before that was derailed.

Most people know that graduate school is not an easy thing. The academics alone can make a student long to just quit. For graduate students with a family, it can be even more difficult. That proved very true for my dear husband, especially considering an MDiv is a 96-hour degree – equivalent to the number of academic hours required to become a medical doctor! Family needs, finances, transitions, and a myriad of other obstacles stood in his way on so many occasions.

I knew he could do it. I knew he could and would persevere. But I have to admit that I sometimes wondered if we would ever see the end of the journey. So many of the obstacles were outside of our control. It wasn’t always about perseverance. Sometimes it was about finding the freedom to do what he longed to do.

Now as we are sitting at the end looking back over the journey, one thing is crystal clear to me. This is right. May 23, 2014, was the day my husband was supposed to graduate. B.H. Carroll Theological Institute was the school he was supposed to graduate from. None of the obstacles truly derailed us. They simply brought us here – right where God wanted us to be.

Words cannot express my pride and joy as I sat through Friday night’s ceremony. It was more than just an academic ceremony to me. It was a life ceremony. It represented twelve challenging, but blessed, years. It represented prayers and conversations and hard work. It represented a myriad of people who invested in our family over the years. It represented a surrender of our idea of how and when and why it would all happen – a surrender that allowed God to step in and do it His way.

How precious is that?

I would be willing to bet that there is at least one seemingly long-overdue success in your life. Something you have been working toward for months, years, or even decades. I know what it’s like to be in the middle of that. I know that my words to you might seem empty and even frustrating right now. But I’m going to say them anyway. And one day, you will see them come true.

It is going to happen. If you are working for His glory and in submission to His will, whatever you are working for will come to be. It will not happen in your way or in your time, but it will happen.

And when it does, you will know that it was right!