Graduation: Part 3

To read Graduation: Part 1 click here and Graduation: Part 2 click here.

In May of 2009, at the end of my husband's second full year of school, we found out we were having a baby.  Our plan had been to wait until we were all done with school - a good three more years, but clearly, God had other plans, and not just regarding our son.  About three weeks after we found out our news, the new pastor at our former church in Topeka offered my husband a part-time position as worship leader.  We said, no, thank you, but that wasn't something we were interested in.  If you know this pastor, you know how persistent he is about things, and since he kept bugging us, we started praying about it.  The hours were going to work out perfectly with school and the pay was going to help offset some of those bills we knew were going to go up when our baby got here.  After much prayer and consideration, we took the job.

Our son was born in December, which was a HUGE blessing, because it was over KU's Christmas break, which meant we were both home for four weeks together with our new son.  But when he went back to school and I went back to work, things got difficult.  He had intentionally (and very wisely) taken a lighter load of classes in the semester that followed the birth, but I had to return to work, which was something I had always loved and was now something I dreaded.  The commute to Topeka for work was really starting to wear on me with a baby, and we depended on our moms, who lived in Topeka, to take care of him while we were both at school.  This meant we were constantly in Topeka and rarely at home.  Even on the weekends, we had church in Topeka on Sundays and usually some family thing on Saturday.  I was really starting to resent the family for making me come to Topeka on my one day home with my family.  Something was going to have to change.

That April, we made the decision to leave Lawrence after four years and return to Topeka.  This was a difficult decision for a multitude of reasons, but neither of us were comfortable with me and the baby going back and forth from Topeka in the car every day.  Due to the dramatic decrease in the cost of living in Topeka, we were able to buy a house, and I was able to drive just 15 minutes to work instead of 40.  The church was close, our families were close, and it seemed everything was getting easier.  For me.

My husband was still driving back and forth to Lawrence every day and now that we didn't live there, it meant all nighters were literally all nighters and there was no coming home.  I had a baby home by myself most evenings, though my parents were a huge help to me during this time.  The first semester of this last year was particularly challenging, as my husband was gone to class or rehearsal at church for three of the nights of the week, and usually the one he had off was spent in Lawrence studying or working on projects.  This semester was much easier (on me, at least!) and as we moved toward graduation, we began to get very, very excited.

To be continued...