Hurry up and wait

Junior year in high school I started to consider going to medical school, by the time senior year rolled around I had decided on becoming a dentist.

Since I made that decision I have constantly been preparing myself, always thinking about how to make my resume look better, focusing on good grades, participating in research, volunteering and getting involved with various clubs.

After spending my junior year carefully choosing what schools I wanted to apply to, taking the dental admissions text (DAT), working on my personal statement and supplemental materials I was finally ready to apply for dental schools. On June 1st 2011 I submitted my application to ADEA the American Dental Education Association.

Four months have passed since that day. I have received 1 letter of denial and several other generic letters saying that my application is being reviewed. In this time period I learned that waiting and not being able to have any idea how the review of your application is going is much harder than preparing to apply.

The only thing that I have been able to do in this time is to learn to be at peace and trust that God knows the outcome, knowing that I will be ok even if I don't get accepted. It took me quite a while to be ok with the idea that I may not get accepted but at this point I refuse to let that get me down. If I don't get in I will just keep applying until I do.

All I know is that in 8 months Eric and I will graduate. In 8 months we have to move and in 8 months we will have to find jobs where ever we go. All of these huge decisions depend on if I get in to dental school and where it it. This is the hardest part, feeling that my near future is just is hurry up at wait mode until I find out about schools. In the mean time I will just keep learning how to trust, be patient and believe.

Thoughts on marriage

Eric and I have now been married about a year and four months, I have learned a lot in that amount of time. After the wedding it felt so bizzar to be living together, I remember many sleepless nights because I was not used to sharing the bed as well as countless times I had to remind myself that Eric had to be considered even in every day menial tasks. These are some things I learned very quickly...

1. Our societies depiction of marriage is completely inaccurate

Absolutely nothing in a real married life agrees with reality TV. This is true when it comes to spousal roles, responsibilities, attitudes towards each other and especially sex. I am so thankful that Eric and I see eye to eye on what a God directed marriage should look like. He and I are so different and instead of trying to make each other conform to what society called normal we chose to embrace the fact that God made each of us in all of our uniqueness for a reason.

2. Its ok to be different

For us this is very apparent in the fact that I am the one that has long term career aspirations where as Eric would ultimately like to be a full time father. This is completely opposite of whats considered normal but we love it! If Eric tried to become a very forward, driven, outgoing, goal oriented person or if I tried to sequester my passion and drive to be involved in health care we would both be completely miserable! Now that doesn't mean that Eric doesn't have goals or that I don't have the desire to be a mom. Eric places his goals in valuing our future family over a career, which suits his very patient, nutering and kind personality perfectly. Since we have been married I have longed from deep within, deeper that I thought possible to be a mother. Even though I want to be a career oriented women it doesn't mean that I will not strive to be an awesome mom completely invested in our children's lives.

3. Going against what society sees as normal is hard

When we meet new people one of the first questions everyone askes is "what do you want to do?" First off, this question is really quite ambiguous but you can tell the person asking is usually wanting to know about our career paths. I cringe at this question because when the person finds out that Eric is not quite sure what he wants to do for work and that ultimately he wants to be a full time dad while I want to be an oral surgeon, I always get the feeling that person sees Eric as somewhat inadequate. This is an incredibly false assumption. If Eric was trying to be some big career guy, we would both be spending the majority of our time and effort in tasks outside of our marriage and family. Now I realize that Eric may find a job out of college that is awesome and want to work in that field forever because he is passionate about it. I have no problem with this because I know that God paired us together to be each others help mates, even if Eric does pursue a career he will stay grounded in our family constantly inspiring me to achieve my goals and help people along the way.

4. Men can't read minds

I went into our marriage with so many pre conceived ideas about what my duties were as a wife. it only took a few weeks after school started again for me to realize I needed help. I found myself breaking down and over tears telling Eric that I can't do it all; the cooking, cleaning, laundry, all while working hard at school and trying to live a healthy life style. Some how I had it in my mind that I had to do all this stuff and I found myself feeling like I was failing at marriage or letting Eric down my not being able to do it. After I told Eric through bursts of tears what had been going on in my mind his response shocked me. He said that if I had just shared with him what I felt needed to be done and the areas I could use his help, he would have been glad to lend a hand. I was so relieved to hear that but it didn't surprise me because Eric is my ultimate cheerleader, encouraging me and helping me with everything I aspire to achieve.

5. The alleged honeymoon phase is real

I had always wondered what people meant when they talked about the honeymoon phase. About 1 year and 2 months into our marriage I began to realize that somethings were getting harder. It was harder to always be open and honest, put each other first and for me to be patient when Eric's idiosyncrasies stood out. For me this marked the end of the honeymoon phase we were getting to know each other better and it was getting harder to be ok with our differences instead of trying to make each other into mini versions of ourselves. I always thought the end of the honeymoon phase would be awful, but its not, its just different and filled with all sorts of new things to learn.

6. Love is not what I expected it to be

I don't know how describe what I expected, all I can say that real life love is different. This is not a bad thing, rather its actually quite intriguing. Each day I learn a bit more about how to love Eric better, in the way that means the most to him. I also learn that I interpret his love in different ways that I thought I would. Before we were married I never would have thought that coming home after a very long day and having the huge pile of dishes done would mean "I love you" to me, but now I can tell you that it does. Love is an incredible thing, one of the best things that I have learned is that if you ever find yourself talking to an individual or couple that is struggling with something, look at the bibles definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13. If one of the virtues in this verse is missing...that is usually the root of the problem.

Pelvic Surgery

This week has been such a blur. Starting about three years ago I began to have some pelvic pain. At first it was very irregular and not to painful but over the years it became much more frequent and extremely painful. Last week the pain was so bad that I decided to go to the doctor. The doc didn't do anything, I felt like going was a waist of my time. Because of a suggestion from me the Doctor referred me to an ob/gyn. A few days later I was sitting in an ob/gyn office to meet with Dr. LeClair. He did my annul exam and we talked about what could be causing my pain. We agreed that the next step would be to get an ultrasound since my exam went well.

The ultrasound for the most part looked good but the technician did find some polyps and fluid in my cervix. Reviewing these findings with Dr. LeClair he said the next step would be to perform a laparoscopy surgery.

Two days ago I went in for the surgery hoping that the doctor would be able to find the source of my pain. He found some endometriosis, a lesion on my small intestine and removed the polyps from my cervix. I am relieved that he found the problem. Now I am at home trying to recover before school starts on Monday. I will be meeting with Dr. LeClair again this week to go over what he found and to discuss further treatment for endometriosis as well as any fertility issues that may arise.

God why this, why now?

1st Corinthians 10:13 "No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the corse of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He'll never let you be pushed past your limit; He'll always be there to help you come through it." (MSG)

I love this verse, it just popped off the page while I was reading this morning. As I wait to hear from dental schools, as Eric and I decide what were doing with out lives next year, as we begin the school year, figure out finances...God WILL help us make it though all that comes our way.

Man that is so powerful, I just want to rest in that peace, knowing everything will be ok.

Am I going crazy?

Since my car accident in 2007 I have had severe pelvic pain. This pain comes and goes and in these last few months has become much more frequent and severe. Finally I went to an ob/gyn to try and figure out what is going on. From all the tests the doctor ran nothing is blatantly wrong with me. After having an ultrasound on Tuesday the doctor decided to do a laparoscopy surgery on me this Friday. Such short notice but at least it will be done before school starts on Monday and hopefully he will be able to figure out what has been going on. I am praying that he does find the source of pain so I know I am not going crazy.

My mother was diagnosed with endometriosis in her twenties. The pain that I have been having with not obvious source along with the genetic factors has led me to suspect I may have endometriosis as well. If that is indeed what the doctor finds, appointments will follow to talk about fertility. The last thing I want to have to consider right now is the possibility of not being able to have children but I know that if I do learn this on Friday, Eric and I will figure it out. We will be ok because I know God has a plan for us and in the worst case we will just adopt.

College lessons

This term has been particularly challenging for me. All of my classes had been reading and writing intensive. I love both, but I can not retain my reading, and correct spelling in my papers has been a battle. UO has a writing lab, it has been my saving grace. You simply drop in and wait for an open tutor. The tutor then reads your paper, tells you what needs to be fixed, and you learn about your repetitive mistakes. The main things that I have learned are this;

I now understand compound sentences and the use of commas.

I know that when you use a quote, you put a period after you site the page numbers.

I have learned that things like Scripture, Heaven, and Hell all need to be capitalized.

I have learned to only use words and quotes that support your argument, nothing else.

Never say I think or I believe.

My two most important things that I have learned in my classes are;

In Social inequalities I have learned to pray about a class before signing up for it. Once your in a class you are subject to learn, read, and listen to everything the teacher wants regardless of your view on the issue.

In German I learned to introduce myself to someone that is different from the rest of the class, this will make you delight in something new. I intentionally sat by a lady in her late fifties. She just made my day, what a beautiful thing age is!

All in all, even though this term had been very hard. I have learned by far the most about myself, my tendencies, good study/reading skills and how to think critically. I have found that undergraduate education does not condone this. Multiple choice test are common for undergrad classes. When you hear a lecture you do not think ABCD. You can train your brain to just reproduce the professors information, but what would you have learned? I have learned not to do this, but to rather critically analyze the information.

The little things

So when it comes down to the day to day college life I find that the littlest things make all the difference. I am learning to take everything one day at a time. Often times I push myself beyond all of my limits. I am not satisfied with just a A I will do whatever I can to get an +A. I still don't really understand why I do this to myself. In life it is way harder to raise your standards then to lower them. So when it comes down to it, if I don't get an +A at least I will get an A.

Learning to not be anxious has helped allot. I will just do what I need to do for that day, then I will just relax and not let worries about tomorrow bother me. Another thing that has really helped me is prayer. It is hard to pray on campus. There are so many people around all of the time. Between classes I will just pray in my mind. One of the best things I have found it do pray in the bathroom. This sounds very odd but it works. The bathrooms are quiet and normally empty, they make a great spot to pray.

The little prayers get me though. Taking everything day by day has been a hard thing to learn. I think I will never stop learning about how to not worry. It has been amazing to see how God's peace takes over and makes everything else in your life fade away.