It’s been four years since my husband began medical school. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. The years have managed to be both excruciatingly slow and as fast as the speed of light. My husband is a “non-traditional” student who was switching gears professionally, which meant we had a nine month old daughter and were in the middle of moving my grandmother in with us when he had his White Coat Ceremony.
Since then, I’ve birthed two more babies, and as I’ve watched my waistline stretch and shrink and stretch again over the years, I have become more aware and more grateful for the other stretching that has happened in my life- the stretching of my heart and my soul. You know the kind of stretching I mean, the kind that calls you to greatness, the kind that calls you to sainthood.
When we started medical school, I was told by many well-meaning people that it would be the hardest period of our life, except for residency. And it has been. But not in any of the ways I anticipated. The flip side though, is true too- there have been blessings beyond measure that I did not expect along the way.
I expected to miss my husband while we endured long stretches of rough hospital schedules, and I did, but I never expected that thanks to the wonders of technology and streaming lectures, he would be home for almost two years, allowing him to bond with our children in a way that wouldn’t have been possible had he been working a regular job. I never expected that our son would only nap or fall asleep for Dad.
I expected to love time with my grandmother, who I had an incredibly close relationship growing up. I didn’t anticipate that dementia and the losses that come with age would change her so drastically, calling me to grow in love and service of a woman that God calls Beloved. I didn’t anticipate that last year, I would live Holy Week out in my own body as I gave up my 5 week postpartum self for her. She came home from the hospital on Palm Sunday unable to walk, with no recollection of who she was or who we were. With a newborn secured in a Moby wrap, and a toddler and preschooler underfoot, I washed, changed, and fed the woman who had done the same for me three decades ago.
I didn’t expect to be a solo parent for a month this past summer while my husband traveled to Georgia for a sub-internship. I could never have foreseen the intensity of that parenting experience, the toll it would take on my body and my chronic illness, and how long I would need to recover. And while it was exhausting and frustrating, the month itself was okay. I was capable. There was grace. The kids and I went on the yearly big family vacation with my in-laws on our own, and for the first time in my marriage, I felt fully and entirely one of the family.
I didn’t expect that our third pregnancy would leave me awake and vomiting for six weeks straight before I gave birth. But I also couldn’t have known that my husband would be on a particularly “easy” rotation then, allowing him to be home early enough to take on the majority of evening childcare duties to let me rest. And I certainly could never have predicted the joy our daughter has brought into our lives. She’s the kind of baby that is so good you never want to have another because it can’t get any better or easier.
These past four years have stretched and grown me in ways that I didn’t think were possible, precisely because they were not what I expected. Had I known what awaited us in the beginning of this medical journey, I’m sure I would have blanched and done everything within my power to convince my husband to choose another path. I would have told anyone who would listen that I couldn’t do it. And I would have been right. But God didn’t mean for me to handle it all at once. He didn’t hoist a huge load onto my shoulders. He meant what He said, that the yoke is easy and the burden light- but not, I think, because it is objectively a light load or an easy burden, but because He adds little by little according to the measure of our growth in strength, according to the measure that our capacity has stretched. And that stretching happens over time.
Now I am able thank God for all that I did not know and praise His Holy Name that His Will and His workings were kept hidden from me until I was ready for them. Because there is truth in the verse from Isaiah: “a bruised reed, He shall not break, a smoldering wick He will not quench.” He doesn’t break us, but He does bend, and He does stretch. It is painful at times, but there is grace in the suffering. I am grateful that I have had the chance to suffer, to grow, to be bent and shaped into the woman He has asked me to be.
I began this medical school journey with expectations. I am leaving it with expectant faith. God has shown me in the stretching, that He is faithful, that He will provide the unlooked for source of grace, peace, patience, courage to get me through the day. I may not have any idea where we will end up next or what God will call us to- both literally and figuratively because the medical match means my husband will be placed in a position at a hospital somewhere in the US, and we will just have to go-, but I do know that God will be there walking with us. I am confident in His love and my place in His Heart in a way I have never been before, because how He has stretched me these past four years. I look forward with expectant faith, confident that He will move, to the next stage of our journey.