completion.

Apparently I’m supposed to be smarter. Walk taller. Singer better. Work harder.

Not so much, actually.

I’ve got an ugly hat made of velvet, a polyester gown, & a large diploma to prove that I’ve got to new letters after my last name & a new “title”. Oh boy.

{why yes, that was my shining moment...i am so photogenic}

The journey has been a blur. Really & truly, it has. At times I thought they’d lock me in the anatomy lab forever. And I told my family that I’d literally hit my head against my little cottage wall after studying for 10 hours on Saturday—isn’t that what all then-23-year-olds do with their weekends?

But hindsight has a way of adding sugar & sweetness to all those bitter memories. And now, looking back, the journey although seemingly miserable, doesn’t seem quite that bad anymore. The swollen fingers, under-the-eye-bags, gray hairs (yes, its true!), & hours spent with my textbooks seems well, do-able. Not that I’d volunteer to repeat it, but now I can recognize that God & the people He surrounded me with were not only part of His divine plan to get me through it, it was His plan all along to carry me through it.

And before I show you pictures of the festivities, I need to thank someone.

Him.

He’s been amazing through this journey. Patient. Kind. Loving. Gentle. Understanding (oh SO understanding). I’m not sure many men would volunteer to marry a girl, volunteraily live apart for 3 years, and then send her off into the abyss of intern-year & 80-hour-work-weeks with a smile. But then again, it doesn’t surprise me. That is why I married him in the first place. You see, he’s got Jesus in Him. And the foundation of our marriage, we’d like to think, isn’t based on what the world sees.

Jon, I couldn’t have done this without you. Seriously. You’ve made me a better person through this journey. We know it isn’t over. And God’s greater plan & purpose is yet-to-be-revealed. But in the middle of my long nights studying alone, in the midst of stressful exams & overwhelming mountains of information, in the encounters with difficult patients & trying attendings, I remembered YOU.

And you made it all worth it. Thanks for that.

Love you, bunches.