Hello Graduate Wife Readers,
I know many of you were moved by the incredible story of our friend, Katherine Wolf, that was posted a few months back.
She recently started a new site called Hope Heals, that not only tracks her healing progress, but also shares an array of amazing life lessons, tips and stories. We thought we’d pass it along.
It is incredibly inspiring and we hope it speaks to you on your graduate wife journey.
Enjoy!
I recently finished reading Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist, a collection of short essays on celebrating the small things in life. I can honestly say that celebrating small things isn’t something that I do naturally, but I now believe it is a discipline that needs to be incorporated into my daily life. One of the ways I plan to celebrate is to keep a notebook with two things from that day that can be celebrated. I’m still not sure how I will incorporate celebrating into the rest of my life, and I know it will be a work in progress, but I am resolved to this: life is short enough, but even shorter when we don’t take (or make) the time to celebrate.
The graduate wife journey is often fraught with worry, shattered dreams, and crushed expectations. The darkness crowds out the light, the bad outweighs the good. Those feelings often define our journey. What would it look like if we took the time to celebrate even the smallest of things? Would it bring us joy amidst the pain? This question has plagued me for the past month!
Because of my reflections on this issue and a few discussions with thoughtful friends, we’ve decided to start a ‘Celebrations’ section on this blog. We want to hear from YOU. What are you doing to celebrate in your life? It literally can be anything – a new baby, a husband passing an exam, a good day at work, getting a job. Whatever you decide to share with us, we will post it. Let us celebrate with you!
I am selfishly writing this post, celebrating a BIG event that took place in our lives earlier this month. My husband graduated with his PhD. (Can I get an AMEN?) We celebrated. We’re still celebrating. I think I will be celebrating for awhile. This 7 year chapter in my personal graduate wife journey is over, and I’m turning the page, greeting the future with courage and a hope of things anew.
So, I ask again. What are you doing to celebrate in your graduate wife life?
Mandy
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Written by Judy – a former graduate wife
Today I open the book of readings my husband gave me over 26 years ago—before we were married—and the author’s dedication reminds me of who I am: ‘For every pilgrim who yearns for God’
I am a pilgrim, though an unlikely one. When I was growing up, my family rarely traveled. We lived in the same house since I was four years old and the furthest we traveled was to a nearby campground for our vacations. We did not suffer from wanderlust.
So I think it came as a surprise to all of us when, at the age of seventeen, I became convinced that I was meant to go away from home for university. Far away. Three thousand miles away. And though I have been back for visits, and even married a man from the same state, I have never lived there again. In fact, I have never lived again in any of the nine cities (in three different countries) in which we have lived since getting married.
I could say I blame my husband for my vagabond state. He was a graduate student when I met him, and three graduate degrees and a job in academia later, all of our moves have been related to his career. But it wouldn’t be true to say that it is his fault. I knew before I met him that I was not called to stay in one place; I was called to ‘go’.
One of my favorite passages in the bible comes from Psalm 84. I can still remember reading it, before I had ever met my husband, and knowing that there was a message there for me: ‘Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage…They go from strength to strength…’ The Cambridge dictionary defines a pilgrim as ‘a person who makes a journey, which is often long and difficult, to a special place for religious reasons.’ I have made a journey, which has been long and sometimes difficult (and often amazing), to many special places because that is what I believe God has called me to do. I have set my heart on pilgrimage.
I say this, not because I think I am special—I believe we are all called by God to an amazing journey with Him—but because I think that unless you have a sense of calling, it is impossible to live the life of ‘sacrificial support’ that is the life of the wife of a graduate student.
I love that term, ‘sacrificial support’. I think it precisely embodies what it means to be the spouse of a graduate student. Because providing the support that a person who is pursuing a graduate degree needs does require sacrifice, often on a comprehensive scale: sacrifice in terms of career, income, children, family, home-making, personal pursuits, even attention and affection. It is not for the faint (or the selfish) of heart. And while in the early stages love for our spouse and a love of adventure may propel us along, there comes a day when the newness wears off and we begin to feel neglected and unappreciated and we wonder, ‘Is this what I signed up for?’ It’s then that we have the chance to truly understand the sacrificial part of the equation; it’s then that we have the chance to dig deep to find what we didn’t know we had.
Or not. I’ve seen graduate marriages fail, and others take a severe beating. This can be a very difficult road to travel. And while I don’t believe there is a formula for success, I do believe that it is essential to have a shared sense of call and vision, something larger than merely what this means to the interests and career path of the one who is studying, and something larger than the attitude ‘I’m letting you have your turn now so that I can have my turn later.’ There is no 50/50 in marriage. There is give and take; there is negotiation; but always there is sacrifice—on both parts, because that is what love is about.
So here I am, twenty-six years of marriage, fourteen moves of house and three (mostly) grown children later, looking back at the beginning of this adventure in ‘sacrificial support’. I had no idea what I was in for and it has not turned out anything like I’d expected. And I’m sure the adventure is not over. There have been wonderful experiences too numerous to count, and there have been difficulties I couldn’t have managed if I had not believed that this was all part of a bigger plan, part of a pilgrim call.
So I am very thankful for my pilgrim heart. I think it has helped me negotiate this sometimes difficult road. It has helped me to keep the big picture in view—that we are on a journey and that each stop along the way is just that, a stop; it is not the final destination. It is not the point at which I can say, ‘Well, that’s over. Now I can begin my life.’ Life is in the journey.
Words from a Michael Card song that I love:
There is a joy in the journey,
there’s a light we can love on the way.
There is a wonder and wildness to life,
and freedom for those who obey.
May we all experience joy in the journey; May we all experience the wonder and wildness of life and the freedom that comes from following our call.
As a graduate wife, did you ever feel ‘called’ to begin this graduate journey with your husband? If so, how has that ‘call’ helped with your transition into this season of life?
Written by Julia – a former graduate wife.
My husband, Dave, and I have been married for five years, and in that time we have lived in four different countries. The growth of our marriage, my career and our family has taken place in a different zip code, post code or Postleitzahl every year until this one, when we are finally experiencing a second year in one city. And all this for a girl from the American South, where roots are important.
In our first move abroad, while skirting the North Sea in a taxi cab from the Edinburgh Airport to The Flat I Had Not Seen, Dave praised the rolling green hills spotted with sheep and lined with stone walls, enraptured with some sort of pastoral bliss. I, on the other hand, cried. Putting thousands of miles and an ocean between us and our friends and family somehow did not have the same inspiring effect on me.
At least not at first. In between that day and this one, I have lived in places of unspeakable beauty. I have shared a running route with Eric Liddel, regularly visited splendid castles and wandered around the Black Forest. Just yesterday, I happened upon a 12th century church with a well which served as inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland – just before dinner, a fifteen minute walk from my flat. Those back home who think of living abroad as an enviable adventure are not far off.
But that’s not the whole story. While there certainly is some romance to country hopping, such transience brings with it layers of challenge, from the mundane to the profound. What on earth is the German equivalent of condensed milk? Why 
does it take four hours to wash a load of laundry here? Where will I work? Will my niece and nephews remember me after not seeing me for long stretches at a time? How will anyone really know me if I don’t stay long enough in one place to form genuine relationships? The questions trip over themselves at first, and transform over time from the urgent practical questions that require immediate answers, to the deeper questions about vocation and identity. Uniting them is a sense of unsettledness, of disquiet in the face of change.
Facing an uncertain future – practically a definition of time spent with a spouse who is studying – invites one to engage the unknown in the mode of trust. Each move, whether physically moving to another place or simply reaching a new season, represents another chance to show bravery. Most of the time, I feel more like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand than an eagle taking the opportunity to spread its wings and soar (can you tell I’ve been reading animal books to my nine month old?), but because of my faith, I am learning that God condescends to meet our cowardice with courage. In spite of my grumbling recalcitrance, God in his rich love chooses to give us more than we need to press on. In the end, the most lasting help against fear is not a stable income, a comfortable living situation, a routine, but the accompaniment of God himself. But the fact that courage is commanded in Scripture, rather than portrayed as the constant possession of the believer, suggests that this courage is always something to be sought and re-sought:
Have I not commanded you?
Be strong and courageous.
Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed,
for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
Most days I find myself living somewhere between the promise and the command, called out of fear and into trust, but struggling to meet the future without nail-biting apprehension.
Anyone else facing these difficult lessons in courage?
During the season of our lives that was a Master’s degree, I struggled daily with where God had placed us. Because of my faith, I never doubted that we weren’t supposed to be there, but I did doubt that God was around, walking the journey with us. I smiled through my frustration, cursed through my fear, and let my heart cry silently as life moved ever so slowly by.
For my birthday, I asked my husband for The Message Bible. (Secretly, I wanted it because of the psychedelic 3D cover. I have strange taste in art…..ask any of my friends). He granted my wish – hooray! – and as I read through the New Testament I stumbled on this verse:
So if you find life difficult because you’re doing what God said, take it in stride. Trust him. He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll keep on doing it. 1 Peter 4:19
I literally felt the verse lift off the page, as if it had been written for me. I made several copies of it, placing them in my car, my bathroom, and my office. It became my mantra, my prayer. It encouraged me. My head and heart repeated constantly, ‘Trust Him. He knows what he’s doing, and he’ll keep on doing it.’
I have walked around with that verse for the last 5 years. It will always be meaningful to me, even when this season we are in passes.
What verse, quote or book has carried you through this season of your life?
Mandy
x
the graduate wife 
