As we sought advice 3 years ago on the timing of seminary: everyone had a different opinion for us. Some said, suffer through it now before kids, others said, get ministry experience first, others: skip it altogether. As hard as the last 2 years have been, we're so thankful we chose to have Joel attend seminary during this season of our lives. Joel has learned so much at Trinity and having additional education has opened doors for future ministry positions for him.
Joel...my respect for you has grown in tremendous ways the last 2 years because of your ability to be...
DRIVEN: very few people can complete a 3-4 year grad program in 2 years while working 30 hours/week and graduating with honors while keeping a wife happy...a picky wife like me none the less! You have gone out of your way to help me with the house duties, wipe the tears from my eyes after a rough day, & brought fun & laughter into our marriage.
DILIGENT: you pursued school, your job, & leading our family with excellence the last couple of years.
DISCIPLINED: you are the most disciplined person I have ever met. You never pulled an all nighter because you were careful to manage your time ahead of time. You never lacked Jesus time & was sure to make sleep & exercise a priority! You always saved time to pour emotional energy into your wife at the end of a long day.
The last 2 years haven't been a complete walk in the park for us. We've had a lot of fun times, but also had many challenging weeks. We'd never recommend the fast track of seminary to anyone else & we'll never ever choose to live life at such an intense speed again, but we've made it & soon our life will look incredibly different:
- Weekends will be fun days--not hw days
- Thanksgiving and Easter will be filled with family time and lots of food, not 10 hour days of paper writing and book reading
- Joel will have way more time to read just for fun
- Our entire lifestyle will transition to normal instead of two over worked, over studied people who never saw each other enough
Babe, I'm so proud of you & seriously couldn't be happier about today finally coming! You have been an incredible husband. Words cannot express the emotions and experiences both of us have felt the last 2 years. 30 years from now we'll probably look back and laugh and think "why did we ever choose to put ourselves through such stress during seminary". But it was a choice we made together and the stress is over & brighter days are ahead! I couldn't have picked a better man to spend this journey called life with...I am honored to be your wife :)
1 comment:
We met Joel Sunday morning when the high school students (including our daughter) left for camp. We did the "curious parents" thing and Googled you -- in a completely non-stalking way, of course! ;-)
Love the heart for ministry displayed in your blog. Look forward to your ministry here.
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