excerpt from the "wives panel"

i was asked to be on this panel of medical wives today. it was a wonderfully encouraging time and i figured i may as well post the thoughts i had leading up to it as we were given the questions ahead of time. maybe later i will post some thoughts on the wisdom i gleaned from the "real adult wives/moms" that were there...we shall see...

1) How do you manage expectations regarding quality time with your husband?

when i read this question out loud to adam on sunday, we both burst out laughing as this is one area in which we have a lot of room to grow. even this weekend we had to step back and evaluate our expectations for our time together.

small children season (especially 15 months apart) is just tough with or without med-school. it is tiring, distracting, and sometimes consuming.

thus we have to be realistic with our expectations. we don't go on long or expensive dates because time and money are so limited. but we are able to confine the kids to the car or stroller or backpack so we can have relatively uninterrupted conversation.

we try to make the most of their sleeping time (though this is also when we try to accomplish many other things).

we must continually remind each other to be intentional, to be engaged with one another when we are together.

we can also avoid a lot of hurt feelings if we just resolve with God's help to be more gracious to one another in general-let more things go-be slow to anger, quick to forgive, careful with our words, cut out the criticism. as james 1:19-20 says " know this my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God"
and there are a bunch of scriptures in proverbs about nagging, critical women, so we should not be this way!

whether you have kids or not yet, the principles can still apply: be creative, intentional, realistic. and don't ruin your precious time together with over-sensitivity, quick words, anger, or criticism. rather, let grace abound!

i have also found it to be tremendously helpful to be filling my mind with wisdom from other experts on being a Godly spouse. i have found these books to be wonderfully encouraging as they are easy to read slowly and in short increments of time:
Fearlessly Feminine by Jani Ortlund
Let Me be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot
This Momentary Marriage by John Piper

2) Describe your experience having two children during medical school. How has this affected you, your husband, and your marriage?

Ok, so Marit was born at the beginning of Adam's 3rd year and Graham in the middle of 4th year. if i was to pick one descriptor for the last two years...it would be CRAZY and maybe a little foolish. we did not intentionally have them so close together, but we are thankful for it now and think they will be great playmates. we are also glad that graham will be to a somewhat easier age before residency starts (on a predictable schedule and such).

after laboring intensely over the decision, we decided for me to retire from my nursing job. i had used up a lot of my maternity leave being on bed-rest and the idea of returning to work filled me with dread and stress instead of excitement. we also did not have a great childcare situation. it was a hard, hard decision, but definitely the right one for our family. every family is different though and this scenario plays out differently as the context changes...

however, quitting my job was a great financial sacrifice for us as that left us just with adam's loans to live on. we are learning to be content with a simple lifestyle, we probably won't buy a house until after residency, and we don't really have extra money for anything. we love our sweet family and our simple life though!

i must say that having two kids in school has really worked good things in our hearts (and we are continuing to learn these lessons). we are constantly bumping up against our selfishness and our tendency to be discontent with our circumstances. it has been so great for us to be forced to deal with these sins now as i'm sure they will always be struggles for us.

adam has been really faithful to use his time well so that when he is home (especially during busier months), he can be engaged with us and enjoy us. he hardly ever studies at home (in fact for his step 2 cs, he just studied in the parking lot before the test!).

our marriage has faced challenges for sure with a lot of busy and a little stress, but overall we feel our life is richer with children. dealing with our selfishness as parents makes us better spouses too!