Category: Inspiration

Inspiration

When Light Shines Through

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Note:  This piece was drafted a few months back during Oxford’s incredibly wet summer season.

It’s been rainy in Oxford lately.  Like­­, really rainy––so rainy that I can count on one hand the times I have seen sunshine in the past month.  Depressing, huh? It seems that every sort of possible weather record has been broken this summer in England.  Whew.  We are hanging in there though, and we’ve gotten really good at puddle jumping….or rather puddle wading, as my daughter has resorted to swimming in giant puddles near our flat since this summer has yielded zero pool time for her.  You gotta make do, right?

The other morning it was actually sunny when I awoke, and the feeling of warm sunlight streaming through the blinds just made my whole spirit come alive.  I jumped out of bed, made tea cheerfully and had a wonderful time of quiet and reflection all before my daughter awoke.  It was amazing to see how much just a little bit of sunshine lifted my whole being.  As I sat and reflected that morning I couldn’t help but take note of how much more fresh and inviting my flat appeared in the sunlight.  It was like my furniture and the artwork, being illuminated by the sunlight, were saying, “Ah, this is how we were meant to be seen!  These are our true colors!”  Don’t get me wrong: cozy lamps are a good thing, and they are my sanity on the rainy dark days of late, but something about the true source of light illuminating my flat that morning made me wish it would never stop shining.

When you see sunshine for days on end you can easily take it for granted. Treasuring and savoring these few little gifts of it here and there this past month has really taught me to appreciate it, and it’s surprising how much I have been reflecting on it. Here are some simple truths that I have recognized lately:

  • I feel warm and good when standing in the sunshine.
  • I feel seen and known and somehow recognized in sunlight.
  • I feel inspired and eager to press on when the sun shines.
  • I feel illuminated and powerful when the sun is shining on me.

I don’t think it’s by mere chance that some of the greatest and oldest universities in the world have the word ‘light’ included in their mottos. Oxford’s motto is “The Lord is my Light.” Columbia University’s beautifully states, “In Thy light, shall we see the light”.  And Yale’s motto is “Light and Truth”.  I’m sure there are many others I am not including.

Almost all of these are spiritual allusions, which speak personally to me.  But even if not so much to you, the notion of light illuminating darkness and paving the way to knowledge and truth is a pretty profound image to reflect upon.

I know that sometimes my husband’s work can get incredibly tedious and exhausting, and the direction of his research can start to get quite hazy.  It’s a constant prayer of mine that clouds of confusion would be gone from his studies and that his work would be illuminated by light, creativity and truth.

 How do these mottos and metaphors of light/knowledge speak to you?

-M.C.

Expectations · Inspiration

Savor the Here and Now

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–written by Sharon, a former graduate wife

Newly married and with hardly a penny in our bank account, my husband and I moved to North Carolina for him to get his MBA at Wake Forest.  Our decision was based in part on a scholarship and also on the appeal of being on our own, away from our families in Chicago and Annapolis.

We had a plan.  Two years in Winston-Salem and then a move to a more metropolitan area.  There was no tug of war between my career and his and I never saw this time as a sacrifice.  We mutually viewed it as an investment.  My heart’s desire was to be a mom and I frequently joked that after these two years I wanted my ROI, or return on investment.

In order to work right away I began an hourly job through a placement agency, just covering living expenses. It was not until after a year that I was able to use my degree in a salaried marketing position.  Like most newlyweds and grad students, we lived on a tight budget and saved our pennies for fancy date nights at Taco Bell.   We moved into our first apartment with a mattress, Phil’s velour dorm room recliner, a kitchen table, and two suitcases. Our budget was small, but some of the funniest memories from this time in our lives came out of learning to live cheaply.

Our mindset in coming to North Carolina was focused on a means to an end.  We wanted to get through this stage to the next.  Phil felt tied to his role as a student and I felt tied to my job, keeping us from enjoying this time as much as we could have.  Graduation, job, house, dog  (the kind on the front of an LL Bean catalog), baby, and a reupholstered recliner – we did all of those things and in that exact order.

Four kids, three different houses, two Golden Retrievers, and four jobs later I find myself looking back on the simpler days of Taco Bell and our velour recliner with a new perspective.  Twenty years later, I see each of these as things to enjoy and not stages to check off.

With two kids in college and two in high school, I have also begun taking classes for a master’s degree.  I’m not sure what the next few years hold, but this time around grad school is not a stage to get through. This is a time to enjoy my studies as I also enjoy my home and children. Present moments turn into past moments that I cannot get back.  So, for now I am not treating grad school as a stage separate from the rest of my life.  The next step?  Well, I’m not quite sure.  Finishing my degree? Maybe, maybe not – and that’s okay. As God has proven to me in the twenty plus years since my husband graduated, the next stage will always work itself out.

What thoughts or expectations do you have of the future that are hindering your joy in the present moment?

What checklist in your life keeps you from celebrating the blessings before you today?

Inspiration · Roles

“When You Come Back Down”

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-written by Keeley, a current graduate wife


I’ll be the first to concede that the life of a Graduate Wife can sometimes feel…dramatic. Having found myself in one of those moments, I feel a bit of stress, quite a lot of gratitude, but most of all identification with a song which happened to pop up on my MP3 shuffle yesterday.
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First of all, I’ve never really loved this song. Whenever I heard it in college, I felt it seemed codependent, like the singer had no life of his own and was simply leeching off the apparent success of his partner, perhaps living vicariously through the adventures of her life. Listening to it yesterday, however, I realized just how much it parallels my current place in the Graduate Wife experience. Because my husband left just last night for a conference and research trip across the Atlantic Ocean, I couldn’t help but feel some new kinship with the singer in “When You Come Back Down” by Nickel Creek. Some of the lines that reflect my mood are below, but you can find the complete lyrics here.
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You got to leave me now, you got to go alone
You got to chase a dream, one that’s all your own
Before it slips away

When you’re soarin’ through the air
I’ll be your solid ground
Take every chance you dare
I’ll still be there
When you come back down

And I’ll be on the other end, To hear you when you call
Angel, you were born to fly, If you get too high
I’ll catch you when you fall

[Bridge:]
Your memory’s the sunshine every new day brings
I know the sky is calling
Angel, let me help you with your wings

As I said previously, I understand that the life of a Graduate Wife (at least this one) can be dramatic, and perhaps sometimes, melodramatic. But I can’t ignore the way this song resonates in our life together, through so many applications to PhD programs, grants, scholarships, fellowships, and teaching jobs. Through four (so far) trips overseas for conferences, archival research, and data gathering, totaling over four months, ten weeks of that time apart. Listening to this song again, I realize that this is part of what I committed to when we married six years ago—to support him as he ventures to places neither of us would have imagined (and to join him, when time and finances allow!). The lyrics of the song don’t connote codependence for me, because he supports me through adventures of my own; it just so happens that as I write, he is the one “soaring through the air.”

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In the last piece I wrote, entitled “Plan F,” I joked about some of the expectations (or lack thereof) which graduate students and wives have for life after the PhD. The fact is, however, that there are and will continue to be disappointments in this journey. Our spouses pursue these studies because for many of them, it is a dream. Although it may not always be evident to us, or even to them, they do it because on some level, they love it. One of my jobs as a Graduate Wife is to remind him of this when he doesn’t get in, when he gets cut after the second round of interviews, when his advisor submits the online reference for a grant eighteen minutes too late. When he forgets his passport, when he gets a skin rash from a cheap London hotel, when he e-mails about the impossibility of navigating a taxi park in Uganda. I am there to celebrate with him when he passes each and every comprehensive exam, when he gets a paper accepted for a journal or gets asked to write a book chapter, and when he gets into a conference, so I find that sometimes my job is to store up these successes and remind him that his dreams are achievable, in one way or another. For me, this is simply part of loving him, something I made a commitment to do for better or worse. I love that he pursues his goals so passionately, and I believe that it has inspired me to live more boldly than I would have if we had not been on this journey together. Truly, life is so much richer having someone to “help us with our wings.”

Here’s the song if you haven’t heard it!

What do you do to remind your graduate that their dreams are achievable?

Inspiration · Marriage

Pockets of Time

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-written by Keeley, a current graduate wife

It was Valentine’s Day of the first year in our marriage, and we were living in Cambridge, Mass. in a little apartment halfway between Harvard and Central Square. I was scheduled to work the closing shift at Au Bon Pain, a bakery chain that’s very popular in the Northeast. Instead of having a fancy dinner, I decided we’d do a special lunch before I went in to work, composed of meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes (incidentally, the supper my mom fixed on my husband’s first visit to our home while we were dating). It wasn’t until the phone was ringing did I realize how silly I was being, calling my mom at 7:30 in the morning to ask her how to make a meatloaf. It was one of those dinners I had made about four times growing up, on those nights when my mom was coming in late from work and I had to pinch-hit, so I couldn’t remember the details but could have sworn it took 3 to 4 hours to cook. Fortunately for me, she was awake, she is ready any moment of the day to share how to make a meatloaf, and it doesn’t take nearly that long! We will never forget the Valentine’s Day morning we spent watching a movie and enjoying our home-cooked lunch before walking to work through a snowstorm.

That Valentine’s Day, and that year, will always be special to my husband and me, partly because it was our first year of marriage, but partly because we made such an effort to spend pockets of time together whenever we could. Finding these pockets is a skill which only grows more valuable as time passes and a temptation to take one another for granted subtly sets in, particularly once children arrive, so I’ve heard. I remember our Monday afternoons, especially. I had work at Au Bon Pain from 7 a.m.-3 p.m., and Jason had work at City Sports, about a block away, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. We decided to meet in the middle and spend the hour together, sitting on the grass and enjoying the occasional treat I was able to mooch from work, sometimes a scone or a “practice” sandwich I had learned to make out of the extensive lunch menu. We were creative and resourceful about our time, because for whatever reason, we felt compelled to make the most of every moment.

Our rhythm has lost some of the urgency of that first year–we’ve moved and are now in the fourth year of Jason’s PhD program and have settled into something of a routine. But I am grateful for the habits that we formed so early, particularly sharing meals together. Breakfast, dinner, and the occasional lunch will find us at the little round wooden table we found at Target the summer we were married, one or both of our cats looking on curiously. We both are great appreciators of food anyway, but it’s also a time when we are completely focused on the conversation between us, looking directly at one another as opposed to having a computer or two in the way, as is so often the case!

My work schedule is odd because I work retail, so my day off is Monday. Just this week, we packed a simple picnic lunch and found a new hiking trail that led to a small pond, where we enjoyed skipping stones and looking for frogs. I haven’t had regular Saturdays off since we first moved to Massachusetts six years ago, but it’s fun being able to have a special outing on an otherwise nondescript Monday. Because Jason is at the writing stage in his program, every day is pretty much the same–full of writing with a few breaks!

Another tradition we have is to take a day trip sometime around our anniversary. This doesn’t have to be expensive, although it will of course depend on where you live. We’ve enjoyed getting away and seeing some of the sights around where we have lived, whether it’s to the mountains or the beach, or to Amish country. A few times we’ve saved up and stayed in a bed & breakfast, but other years we’ve just taken a day off to spend together in a different setting.

One thing that I hope we never forget is the reality that we will always be busy. We will always (hopefully!) have work to do, other friendships and relationships to pursue, and chores to get done. But for us, finding a moment here and a moment there has made our marriage a lot stronger than I think it would otherwise be, and has made us a family, operating with a sense of unity and a mutual rhythm in how we live our days. I am grateful for a husband who values this as much as I do, and pray that we will continue to find ways to take advantage of these pockets of time as we grow and pass through the seasons to come in our life together.

What are some creative ways that you make the most of the time you have with your spouse? Do you have any weekly/monthly/yearly traditions that you feel have especially enriched your marriage?

Inspiration

To Dream or Not to Dream…..

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Recently, my husband and I attended a dinner, and one of the attendees I spoke with asked me about our journey to Oxford, my husband’s dissertation topic, and what he planned to do now that his PhD was finished.  I lumbered through her questions, desiring to give as little detail as possible, while still being polite. She then looked at me and said, “What are your dreams?”

Admittedly, I froze when this question was presented to me, especially coming from a complete stranger. However, she is one of several people who have asked me that question in the past few months. I have been grappling with that particular question for the better part of the last 6 years but it surely gave me reason to pause: What was I created to do, exactly? Or better yet, am I already doing it? And, what does ‘it’ look like in this graduate wife season of life?

As I think back on my own journey of the last eight years, those questions have become more difficult to answer. If you’re like me, sometimes you might find yourself lost as your spouse’s personal assistant, doing laundry, housework, working a job to pay the bills, caring for children, etc. until you have no idea who you are or how you even arrived there. You might find yourself thinking, “I know she’s in there somewhere, but where is she? What happened to her desires, goals, and dreams before this graduate journey?”

I am surrounded by beautiful, clever, thoughtful women who have made abundant sacrifices to allow their other halves to pursue a dream. I am inspired by their ability to keep moving their own dreams forward even if for right now, it is in the smallest of increments. I love when we hover together over candlelit dinners and drinks, those dreams are spoken of in rich, present, endearing terms, like old friends coming for a visit. I love that in the midst of transitions, these women are finding their place in their cities, homes, marriages, family, jobs.

On the days where I lament some of my dreams being put on hold, I am reminded that the work I am doing now is very important, as it will play a part in helping me define and refine those dreams. When I start my daily commute, and spend long hours in the office, it puts things into perspective. I’m not working just to support my husband’s dream. I’m working to support ‘our’ dream.

My friend, Julia, who has put one of her dreams on hold at the moment, phrased it so eloquently below:

I’ve come, however, to understand that waiting to pursue one’s dreams doesn’t have to mean that they diminish, ‘dry up’ or even ‘explode’ as Langston Hughes famously penned. Rather, the waiting has refined my goal, changed its direction and enriched its beauty. The dream deferred can turn into an aging wine rather than a raisin in the sun. And in this space of waiting, I’ve seen other aspirations blossom and flourish: having children and starting a family, establishing traditions of our own, getting to know another culture.

So what was my answer to the question posed by my dinner partner? I told her that I love helping people. I want people to know that I love them, but that God loves them even more. Although I love being an administrator, having a life long career in administration does not interest me. I want more children. I’m learning that I really like to write, and I want to develop that to see where it might go. I am passionate about this blog, and I love the women that I’ve connected with in this season of life. I want to continue to support my husband on this incredible journey that our family is on, and more than anything, I want us to be successful at it. I know he could do it without us, but I like to think that because we are here with him, he’s better at it.

It was probably more of an answer than she was looking for, but nonetheless, my answer. As I walked home thinking about our conversation, I realized that in a way, I am living my dreams, although they look a lot different than I thought they would at this stage of my life. Yes, there are still many of them unanswered, but when the time is right, those planted seeds will grow. All the experiences currently taking place in this season of life is part of that cultivation.

So, maybe I’ll issue a challenge today – What are YOUR dreams? Are you living them? Or have you let them go? How will you cultivate them during this graduate season of life? Don’t stop dreaming!

-Mandy

Inspiration

Further Reflections of a Home

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I’ve been thinking quite a lot about M.C.’s post from last week, and what home looks like for our family. If you’re creatively challenged like me, it can be daunting to think about decorating, or defining what true beauty actually means. As I glance around our Oxford flat, I see piles of books everywhere, furniture that doesn’t belong to us, really horrible blue carpet, and very little that makes this place ‘ours’. It is difficult to maintain or even define a sense of family identity when everything that surrounds us is not ours.

My husband and I have lived in 6 different places in the 8.5 years we’ve been married. Only one of those places was truly ours; the others were all transition places. Unfortunately for us, when we began our graduate journey, we adopted the “we’re only going to live here for x years, so why bother to decorate” policy. I now realize what a mistake that was.

I know that material possessions do not define us, but what if beautiful things are put into our lives to help us define the environment we live in? What if fresh flowers, photography, beautiful art pieces, or a breathtaking architecture book help us appreciate where we are on this graduate journey? And what happens if we ignore that?

It wasn’t until MC came into my life did I realize how much I missed having a space, or a geborgenheit, in which to rest. After her move to Oxford, I watched her create a little haven for her family, and you know what? When I visit her house now, I am filled with a sense of calm, a sense of rest. Her home is truly a reflection of her family’s identity and personality. She has worked very hard to define what beauty means to her family, especially in this graduate season of life, and has creatively displayed that through the elegance of her little flat. It is home.…but it is her home.

I began to brainstorm ways to make our home a place of rest, wondering how I could incorporate our family personality with our quirky taste in art on a virtually absent budget. All I knew was that I wanted to articulate an atmosphere of happiness, brightness, and laughter, things that had once been very important to me when we owned our first home, as we welcomed friends for dinner, family staying for the weekend, or people who just needed their spirits lifted. I wanted people to feel loved and encouraged upon their arrival and departure in our home. But, I wasn’t sure how to do that.

So, I bought flowers. Not a big deal, but it was for me, because I had not purchased fresh flowers in 3 years.

Then, my aunt sent me this little guy, along with a handwritten note written saying she wanted to brighten our lives and our flat. It did.

But, it wasn’t until last year did I come to realize how one piece of art could completely change our home. My husband and I fell in love with an Oxford artist named Tim Steward. His iconic Oxford scenes moved us, and we sheepishly hatched several ways of procuring one of his drawings, knowing we would never be able to afford one. With a gift lovingly bestowed upon us by our families for finishing a PhD, we now have one of those drawings hanging in our flat. I always marvel at how much it’s changed the room. It represents our time here, memories of forged academic community, the birth of our son, hard work, sweat and tears, the struggles of graduate life.

We began to shape our environment at home, one that did not include bare walls. My husband and I delved into our love of photography, and began to hang more photographs of our son, our godsons, and our family, even though we weren’t allowed to hang things on the wall. Our home began to have a safe feel, a place of familiarity instead of transition, a place we could rest, a place we could imagine being for awhile.

I would by lying if I didn’t stop to say that I do long for the days when the vibrant colors and bold strokes of folk artists that adorned the walls of our first home find their way out of storage to proudly hang in our new home. But, I will be happy for the art that represents and defines one season of our lives to meet the art that represented and defined another season of our lives.

And for me, as I sit in my newly defined place of rest, it is enough. For now.

In this graduate journey, what words would you use to define the environment in which you live?

-Mandy

Beauty and the Budget · Inspiration

Geborgenheit

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I read a lovely book once by a lady named Ingrid Trobisch and in the book Ingrid talks about the idea of creating one’s ‘geborgenheit’.  Geborgenheit is a German word that means safety or security.  After some reflection, geborgenheit to me means a place to laugh and a place to cry.  A place where there is space to be quiet and also a place that makes room for noise.  A place of retreat at times and at other times a place of welcoming others in.  It means a place of fulfillment and also vulnerability, a place of creativity, a place of continuity, and a place of peace and familiarity that can offer me comfort from a long day.

Funny how we find ourselves in many different places on our grad wife journeys.  We live in rented flats with other people’s furniture around us, we live in college family dormitories with carpets that haven’t been updated since 1975, we live in huts in the jungle for field research and we live in suburbia with small cookie cutter houses.  This journey may take us near or far, but we can almost all be certain it usually takes us to places that we might never have otherwise chosen to call ‘home’.

I can’t really begin to describe how much our ‘geborgenheit’ means to our family here in Oxford.  Our place that we call home, that we feel we can welcome others into and our place we feel restful and at peace within.  It’s not my dream home in any way shape or form…but I guess in some ways it kind of is just that.  It is a small, cozy flat that my daughter learned to walk in and that my husband finds refuge in from his demanding work.  It’s a place that I work ‘from home’ in and it offers me a warm corner that I can curl up and relax in with a cup of tea.  It’s not perfect, but it has become something beautiful and it offers a sense of continuity that is essential on this graduate wife journey.

I’ve heard it said, “We are only here for a year…I mean what can I really do?”  Or things like, “It’s just so hopeless I wouldn’t know where to start trying to make this place feel like home….I just don’t even like being there.”  Or even, “I want to wait for the ‘real deal’ to really invest in making my house feel like a proper home.”  All of these comments make me sad.  Sad, just because I realize the incredible power that a comfortable and inviting space can offer a tired soul and what it can do for one’s perspective and attitude.  I don’t want to sound too cheesy, but go create your geborgenheit!  Create a place that offers a sense of safety and continuity and peace.  Look at some of the Beauty and the Budget tips or scour pinterest and google DIY home décor ideas to find millions of amazing ideas that can help enhance your space without much effort or money. Don’t get overwhelmed.  Just pick a project here or there. It’s worth it.  I promise you it is worth it.

When I was in college, I volunteered some nights at a rescue mission for battered women.  The place was amazing and I would help babysit kids while the women went to career training classes.  The name of the place was called ‘bread and roses’ and it has forever stuck with me.  I honestly believe we need ‘roses’ (i.e. beauty and order) in our lives, just as much as we need bread for our souls to truly survive and thrive.  I encourage you to stop waiting for something better to come along or for some other opportunities.  Make the most with what you have.  Be creative. Buy a £4 scrap of fabric and make a table cloth or runner.  Pick up some daffodils outside and put them in a vase, light some candles, cook some yummy meals, turn on some music that moves you.  If you see a quirky trinket at the market that makes you smile, buy it.  You don’t have to do a ton, start with a corner or nook and try to make it feel peaceful, orderly and comfy.

I have shared bits of this before in some of the beauty and the budget pieces, and I felt like highlighting it today because recently our lives have seemed really busy.  If anyone asks, ‘How are you?’, my immediate response is almost always, ‘Gosh, I’m just really tired’.  We’ve been traveling, visiting and working a lot…and in the midst of it all I’ve been reminded how incredibly powerful it is for me to come back to our geborgenheit.  To light candles at our dinner table, to sit and eat together, to unwind and to be present and at peace.  My home has greatly affected my sanity on this graduate wife journey (and my husband’s as well) and I hope the concept can affect your life too.  Try to pick up some roses next time you run out for some bread and see what it does for you.

 Do you have any tips that you have picked up on how to make your temporary house a home?  What does geborgenheit mean to you? Do you have a favorite spot in your home that offers you sanity and peace?

-M.C.

{Disclaimer: I suppose the word ‘geborgenheit’ doesn’t have to refer to physical space, maybe an object can offer that same sense of security, but in the book Ingrid highlights the idea of creating an actual space for oneself and that is what I chose to go with here.}

Inspiration

“And then what shall we do toglether?”

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-written by Betsy*, a current graduate wife

By a recent calculation I spend about thirty minutes a day answering this question. It is my daughter’s first question on awakening, and her last when I’m reassuring her as to the Openness of the Door at bedtime.

“What is tomorrow, Mommy?”

“Sunday.”


”What will we do toglether on Sunday?”


”We’ll go to church.”

“And then what will we do?”

“Then it will be lunchtime.”


”And then what will we–”

“Oh, it will be a very good afternoon. Good night!”

(pause)


”Is it February?”


”Yes.”

“How long it going to be February?”


That’s what we all want to know. “A few more weeks.”

“Then March?”

“Yes.”


”What shall we do toglether in March?”

She always wants the breakdown of the morning, the day, the week, the month, the year. She likes to know what’s coming next. She instantly asks the question again should I try and stall her off. A change of subject is fruitless. Once, I was so tired of trying to answer the question that I immediately offered her a gummy bear. She ate the bear. And asked again.

I’ve tried “I don’t know,” but she simply does not believe it. And the hardest answer for her to hear is “Wait and see.”

But it is hard to wait and see, isn’t it? Not to know. And there’s so many things we don’t know. We get big heads sometimes because we can tell that it will rain two days before it does. We forget that we don’t know much else.

It’s comforting to think that I am there to reassure my daughter when she starts to wonder and worry how we will occupy ourselves in the days ahead. Her little childish mind wants to know if we will be doing her favorite activities, if we will be seeing family and friends. She’s looking for simple things to look forward to, for future plans to get excited about. I can offer her these. It’s comforting because she doesn’t realize I have much bigger questions. Where in the world will we go? How will we navigate the many questions, obstacles, and challenges between here and there? and What will it be like? How will we educate our children? These are just a few of the ones plaguing me lately. And the only answer I have is also “Wait and see.”

When Alex and I were married we had some ideas for what we’d like to do. We’ve always called it The Ten Year Plan. It involved paying down debt, going back to school, starting our family, hopefully studying for a Ph. D. at Oxford or Cambridge, and finally relocating to somewhere in the (non-Western) Majority World and getting involved in the growth of the church through theological education.  It seemed a little far-fetched in 2004. We are now in year eight. God has truly led and provided for each and every step. (Indeed, when I sit and contemplate how he has done so, I am undone.) We’ve been on this journey for such a long time, we’ve sort of gotten used to it. But now it’s time to face the next step: And now what shall we do toglether?

*blog and photo reposted with permission from www.partofthemain.wordpress.com

Inspiration

The Power of Pain

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For the last few weeks, it feels like life has been closing in on our family. I feel like I’m being suffocated as I struggle to process three very difficult life events we’re facing. My normally positive personality feels dim, and my biggest daily desire is to fall to pieces.

I finally came up with a word that I think best represents the last two months: Pain.

For the first part of my graduate wife journey I appeared to dodge pain like a championship dodgeball player. And, I was GREAT at it. I could do anything, I could handle anything, I was a machine; my motto was BRING IT ON. But, that was the outside Mandy. The inside Mandy looked nothing like that. The inside Mandy was running out of places to stuff thoughts, emotions, and things to think about at a later date, and as an internal processor, this was a dangerous place to be.

After living this way for a couple of years, I began to see the devastating effect my “Bring It On” motto had on my physical and emotional health. I decided to see a counselor. I spent that following year delving into my inner core, hating every minute of it. But, my desire to try to understand why I didn’t want to face suffering and why I avoided painful situations gave way to an intense emotional ideology that I’d been hiding behind and clinging to for a long, long time. As I began the process of unraveling it, I found it was ugly. And messy. And ridiculous. And horrible. And painful. Yet, when I’d walked through it, I felt something I had never felt in my entire life: freedom.

Freedom to be myself. Freedom to say I wasn’t fine, when I wasn’t. Freedom from my perfection. Freedom to accept the fact that life is not easy. Freedom to allow others to love me. Freedom from expectations. Freedom to understand what it means to receive and give grace. Freedom.

For this very self-sufficient-I-can-do-it-all woman, it was an amazing breakthrough in my adult life, and it has painted a very different picture for the second half of my graduate wife journey.  Instead of sticking my head in the sand at the first sight of something I didn’t want to face, I bravely faced it. And it changed me.

As I stand before these current life events, I can honestly say I am reluctant to face any more character building lessons, or life lessons. I do not want to go through the pain the next few months holds for me, but I will. I am willing to walk this road, only because I know it will somehow change me for the better.

Without pain, life can never be lived to the fullest. You will never understand full joy. You will never understand rock bottom, or the highest peak. We need to walk through pain in our lives, so we can learn to make the most of each day, being open to whatever may come, feeling grateful for every moment.

I don’t know about you, but I want to live life to the fullest, in my graduate wife journey and beyond. I want to be the best wife, mother, friend, and employee I can be. I want to taste failures and successes, and love my friends and family with reckless abandon. I want to be vulnerable, authentic, and honest.  I want to laugh in good times and weep in difficult times, and know that it’s okay to do both.

I found this quote a long time ago, and tucked it away for another time. I found it a few days ago, and it is exactly where I am today.

Don’t waste your pain. Pick yourself up and use it to help others.  ~Anonymous

So, I ask you fellow Graduate Wives – what are you doing with your pain? Are you hiding from it, or bravely facing it? Are you willing to do what it takes to make it part of your story? And if you are, how will you use it to help others?

If I had not been willing to walk through my pain, this blog might have never been born.

Use the story God has penned for you to impact others.  Move forward instead of staying under the duvet.

Don’t waste your pain.

-Mandy

Expectations · Inspiration

Picture?

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Today’s beautiful post comes from a woman I’ve had the privilege of getting to know here in Oxford.  She has not just sacrificed career choices or zip codes to help support her husband’s plans in graduate school, she has moved countries, cultures and even languages (English is not her native tongue) on her journey thus far, and this is only the beginning of where their graduate school path will take them. Having never traveled outside of her own country before she met her husband, she has since traveled and moved a great deal.  I hope you enjoy a small part of her story as much as I have and I hope it gives you perspective and encouragement while taking a moment to step back to marvel at the unique and beautiful ways our lives have take different paths than we might have anticipated.  –M.C.

                                                

“ What a nice weather!  How lovely they are.   I am watching the old couple who is sitting in my next bench. The husband is holding his wife’s hand tightly.  They are looking at each other with love and smelling sea breeze together.  It seems by years. I am watching that lovely picture and smiling.  And thinking what is my future husband going to look like.  How tall he is? What color his hair is? Where does he live now? What is he doing right now, right now!?”

This was one of my notes I wrote a long time ago before I ever met my husband.

When I wrote these notes, I had a completely different life than now.  I was sure I had already completed my full self-development…all I learned was enough and I was pretty sure I knew how my life would turn out. But there were other surprises for me!

When I met my husband, it was an ordinary day like others.  All I wanted to do was find the cheapest carpet and I found more than a cheap carpet at that souvenir shop!  I found my most special thing!

Not long later we decided to marry.  I’d never left my country before, I’d never had any opportunity to travel around the world.  Life wasn’t very easy for me, and for my generation.  I felt I always had to study and achieve something, I had to deserve my family’s effort for me and I always had to hold in high honour.

That wasn’t their wish for me to marry a foreigner sometime. To let me to leave my country, leave my culture, leave my family? It should have been a nightmare. It was a long and painful period to deal with them and with my friends. That wasn’t just my family who was against the idea, my friends, my relatives and my professors. I decided to not finish my masters degree. That should call “Cultural Shock!”

But thankfully with patience and love, everything changed.  Yes, I had to given up lots of things.  Now I am in a different culture, different language, different side walk, with different friends, different traditions and that wasn’t a picture I thought when I was watching that old couple. But the picture and frame which I have, I love it! There are somethings that still needs to repair in picture but with faith and love nothing is impossible.

“You are my gift from God!” that is what I wrote in my husband’s wedding ring with my hand writing, and that is what he wrote in mine in my language.

God is always ready to give gifts and ready to help us to find the best frames for our pictures of life. It doesn’t matter on which wall it hangs. The wall doesn’t affect the way picture looks, but the picture in a nice frame effects the wall and the whole atmosphere of the room tremendously.   On your graduate wife journey, does your picture look like you had planned it?