It has taken me nearly a month to sit down and write this post, mainly because the emotions have been so all over the place and crazy to process! Now that life is slightly slowing down (only very slightly) I felt I could attempt to do this post justice.

So let me first start by saying a gigantic “thank you” to all of you who have been praying for us and encouraging us throughout this process. If you have no clue what the hey I’m talking about, I’ll explain 🙂

Match Day is a day we have been looking forward to and anxiously/eagerly awaiting every since Brett got word he was accepted into medical school. To keep it really short and sweet, after three years of medical school, all students interview for residency programs and then after they apply and interview, they rank them in a computer system. The computer system also contains the rankings that each school created and then a match is made. So it is a bit like Christian mingle for medical students! ha. Okay, not really, because even though we could make choices when it came down to what order we ranked places, once you get your match, that is it! It sounds a little stressful, right?!? Well, let me tell you, it is make you lose your hair and all your sleep kind of stressful!

The path to Match Day looks a little different for everyone, but for Brett it included going on an interview tour that lasted a few months with three weeks being the longest stretch that he was gone at one time. Once he finished that, we had to weigh all the places and create our list-ultimately with the hope that we would get one of the top three choices.

Now to be totally fair, I think we would have been very happy with any of the top three choices, but I really really really wanted him to get his top pick and spoiler alert, he did!

Why might you ask? Because it is the school that is partnered with DISNEY! Yes, that’s right, Brett is working at a hospital that is head to toe Disney themed!

Some of you may be thinking, “come on Jen, really?” Well, it is so much more than that. See, when Brett was researching all of these places, he was extra excited when he came across this one. Not only because the Disney mission was behind it, but because it is a Christ centered hospital. Which as we both have learned by working in a very secular world these past two years, is so important. It is very comforting to know that when people really need to hear about Jesus (because a hospital of all places is certainly the time to be a witness) it is encouraged. He also really enjoyed his interview there and so needless to say, we had our hopes up a bit that this would be the place. Now, in hindsight, it really does make sense that this was God’s plan all along, but it was such a difficult journey this year to get to this place!

This is a tough road in general, but for a Type-A, prone to being a worrier personality that I am, this was a real test. I knew going into this year that I would be an absolute mess if I didn’t just give this one over to God. Now, I certainly had my stress out moments, but I am happy to say those only kicked in right at the end! They typically were brought on by my sweet students who would ask out of pure curiosity when we would find out and once I could say “Friday” not next month or in a few weeks, it got real. Real quick. The week leading up to Match Day I think I slept about two hours total so that was obviously not wonderful and when Friday came, I was absolutely shaking. I could barely use my curling iron without burning myself!

The moment finally arrived and we walked into the med-school and listened to the opening speeches which felt like they were days long (they were actually only 15 minutes, but super slow minutes), and then it was time to open the envelope and we matched to our top program! We were so very excited and I could barely contain my joy! We even had the chance to announce it and said, “we are going to Disney World!”

Brett dragged me on stage so I wasn’t quite prepared for this! Clearly!

 

I can’t even begin to explain the rush of relief we felt when this day was over. It was perhaps the strangest feeling because we wanted the day to be here so badly, but also be over quickly so we could just enjoy and relax knowing that we had matched and celebrate! (Which we haven’t really done yet because it was full on planning mode right after, more on that later).

We have a few takeaways from this that we want to share and to encourage anyone who is in a season of waiting.

We each handle uncertainty differently and that is O.K.! I needed to avoid talking about it too much to not totally freak out while Brett wanted to talk about it, but in a logical way. He rationalized the numbers and statistics and that gave him more peace and confidence, while I just get more stressed when numbers get involved! ha

God’s plan is greater than our plan. This is what I reminded myself of daily. Even though I had my heart set on ending up where we did, I also really tried to keep in mind that just because I think it would be great, doesn’t mean that it is what is God’s best plan for us.

Lean on each other. We had to learn how to come together on this because it was truly going to be just us facing all these choices and decisions.

Pray for peace. Remember that a lot of these situations that we worry most about, we ultimately have no control over and God has it already figured out. This helped me a lot.

Find people who are in a similar situation or who have come out of a similar situation to gain some perspective. Often times the unknown is what scares us the most, so if you can find some of the answers to your questions, it will usually leave you feeling better, at least somewhat! This was tough for us during this process because Brett was part of the first class at his school, but I found a lot of comfort from a few amazing people on Instagram whose husbands are residents and I read all their posts and it really helped! Huge thank you to Lauren Carnes and Audrey Rose for sharing pieces of their lives and marriages throughout the residency process! It means more than you may ever know, but I found a lot of comfort from you two!

Again, thank you so much friends for your continued prayers throughout this journey! We are so thankful for you and can’t wait to fill you in on the latest updates!