Thursday, May 7, 2009

Well Worth the Wait ~

After 10 years of college, 8 years of marriage, and 4 years of Pharmacy school, we finally made it to the big day......GRADUATION! I've waited a very long time for this "blog post" and thought a lot about what I would say. However, when I went to post it Tuesday night (Graduation was Tuesday morning) I couldn't bring myself to do it! How do I sum up the past 8 years in one blog post? So, after taking a couple of days to gather my thoughts, I am finally able to put into words what I've had in my head for 8 years!

There have been very few days go by that the thought hasn't entered my mind of how drastically different my (our) life could have been. At 19, our only priority was having as much fun as possible. So when I became pregnant at 19, well.........it wasn't good! As disappointed as our parents had to have been, they did what they had promised us they would do our whole lives....they continued to love and support us through it all! Without God's guidance and their love and support we WOULD NOT have made it!

From the beginning, Jeb's only goal was to provide for me and Emma to the best of his ability. In the beginning, he worked 2 jobs and went to school. There were many days that he did not see Emma at all. He would have to leave before she woke up and wouldn't get home until after she went to bed. When he started pharmacy school he continued to work for the first 2 years. He would come home from school/work, eat dinner and go back to the Pharmacy school to study for hours! When he said he would do whatever he could to make a good life for us, he meant it. God has blessed me, Emma, and Ella Reid with a husband and father who loves us so much that he has and will continue to give all he has to provide for us! For 8 years I've watched him work harder and stress out more than anyone I've ever seen. On Tuesday, May 5th, Jeb received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree. But most importantly, that very heavy weight that he's been carrying for so long was finally lifted. I, not to mention Emma (and El, if she'd known what was happening) could not be more proud of him!

Graduation in itself is a huge accomplishment for anyone! But for us, personally and spiritually, it was so much more. 8 years ago we had one HUGE decision to make; we could continue to trust in ourselves OR we could start trusting GOD, each leading down 2 very different paths! Since it was obvious that relying on ourselves wasn't working for us, we decided to give GOD a shot! I would love to say it's been easy but it surely has not! For every "high", there were ten "lows". But God never promised it would be easy, HE promised it would be worth the wait!