For just over 3 years, my husband was working towards applying for grad school to become a physician's assistant (PA). This meant taking some new classes and some old ones over again, doing some volunteer work, studying for the GRE, and a slew of other things. It was hard and a lot of the times, tedious work.
Both he and I were excited for this prospect, though we knew that the road ahead would be rough. PA school is highly competitive and if I could put a number on it, I would say that less than 2% of applicants actually get accepted. Yikes! Despite those odds, I supported Brian in his dream 100%. But there was always this niggling, unsettled feeling in the back of my mind. I couldn't see our future ahead of us, and felt very lost.
All these feelings came to a head about a year ago as we were preparing for our second round of applications. A few weeks before Brian's first application deadline, I had a very strong feeling that we should not apply that year. I didn't share this with him, knowing it would not be well received. But could I blame him for that? No! It would be going against what he desired most and what he was working hard towards! It was interesting, it was like I had this feeling the entire time we were married but it was just becoming more powerful.
It turned out that Brian found out a couple of weeks later that the program that he had to apply through calculated all his classes GPA's together, not just the ones he had retaken, which therefore dropped his GPA to a level that would not make him eligible to apply. All the years of hard work and hope were dashed in an instant. But after the initial devastation came complete peace, for both him and I. To some that would seem off, but to those who know the Spirit, we knew immediately that the Lord was telling us that not applying was the right thing.
Though we knew that PA school was no longer the road to take, our limbo-ness was even greater, for now we had no road to follow at all. For the next several months we sat in that limbo, batting around ideas for other schooling here and there and asking for direction to help us know what to do. I didn't realize that the Spirit was working on my hubby until a couple of months ago when he came home from work with some exciting information on the MHA program at Weber State University. We had discussed it before and it was looking like a program we could apply to, but nothing in all seriousness. But that day he told me the ins and outs of the program, all of which fit us and our situation perfectly: lower overall cost of tuition with all books and fees included, along with being an online program, he would only have to attend in-class once at the beginning of each semester at on off-site campus closer to where we live, he could skip the GRE because he had several years of managerial experience (that was probably the biggest incentive!) and most of the graduates had great employment lined up before graduating because of internships. For a family with a working father with a new baby on the way, it was everything we could have asked for but didn't think to ask. Like the day that Brian learned his PA dream was no more, a warm, peaceful feeling washed over me. But something different came with this feeling: our future opened to my view. I could see Brian in a set career, us no longer being financially strapped, being able to purchase a home, settle down roots and for me to be able to stay at home with our children. It wasn't a vision, per say, but that limbo-feeling left, and the knowledge that we would be able to achieve our dreams was firm. I gave him my immediate and enthusiastic approval-which isn't at all common for me!-and we decided together right then and there that we didn't need to apply to any other programs; this one just felt so right! Two weeks later, his application was in.
We didn't know exactly when a letter from the university would arrive, and we ended up waiting one killer-hard-of-a-month! We were both so extremely anxious to hear back, checking the snail-mail every single day-which we haven't done in the entire 3 years we have been married, haha. In that time, I began to doubt and, let's be honest, kinda freak out. Maybe it wasn't going to happen after all...maybe we should have applied to more schools, I thought. So many maybe, maybe, maybes! But that long, arduous wait made the coming news even more sweet.
Two weeks ago while I was preparing dinner in our little kitchen, Brian ran up to me from ten feet away, words coming out of his mouth so soft and gaspy like he was struggling to speak, "Sweetie!! Sweetie!! Sweetie!!"
After a millisecond of surprise, I saw his phone in his hand, held our for me to see. After another millisecond of understanding that we had received what we had been waiting for, and being scared and excited all at once, I read the tiny words on the screen: "We would like to formally invite you to the Masters of Health Administration Graduate Program and Weber State University."
Brian already had tears streaming down his face and a waterfall broke from mine as well as we held each other tight and jumped up and down. The feeling we had had been right all along, Heavenly Father let us know before it happened that this was the right path for us to take. Not to sound cliche, but our dreams were finally coming true!
We are very much looking forward to the opportunity this is for Brian and our family. I have both giddy anticipation and peace, instead of the fear I did over the grueling lives of PA school students and their families. I think of how I felt when I was dating Brian and could see our future together and felt the rightness of deciding to marry him, where with other young men I had dated in the past, I could not see that future, things were cloudy instead. The same pattern of revelation can been seen in this experience. Maybe you have had experiences like that too.
Heavenly Father will present a clear view if we are to go in a certain direction, even if there are unknowns and even if that direction will bring great testing and challenges. It isn't a perfect road, but it is the perfect road for us to be on. Ask, seek, listen and let Him lead you to that perfect road :)
