Man plans, God laughs
Yiddish proverb
Have you ever had someone say something about your future and it takes all your effort to not totally burst out laughing? I have. And now I chuckle each time I think of that interaction.
It was some point towards the end of high school when my father told me that someday I would marry a wheat farmer. I scoffed…probably louder than I’d care to admit. Why would I want to marry a wheat farmer!? I had grown up as a farmer’s daughter and I knew the rough road that it was to be tied to agriculture. Don’t get me wrong–as an adult I cherish all the life lessons and opportunities that growing up on a farm afforded me. But it was stressful dealing with the financial uncertainties of your family’s income being inconsistent and tied to a commodity market. I had plans, big plans. Plans that included becoming a veterinarian then getting a PhD in microbiology and pursing my dream of going into infectious disease research. These plans would not jive with being married to a farmer (insert tone of teenage angst and disdain to that last word).
But teenage me was wrong.
Oh so wrong on so many accounts.
As I write this post I am sitting in a penthouse suite at the Davenport Grand hotel in Spokane. It’s a big day: the day my wheat farmer husband finishes his term as the president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG).
Yep, I married a farmer.
Teenage me had so many things wrong when it came to envisioning my future life. First error: I thought that I was in charge of it all. Oh how wrong I was. As I look back on the past twenty plus years I can see that try as I might to steer my life and control it’s outcome the only one that truly was in control was the Lord Almighty. It just took me a while to realize this and submit to the realization that His plan was much better than anything I could create. Oh so much better.
Teenage me forged ahead into college and began blazing a way to my dreams. I started strong by gaining entrance into the Honors College Program in Veterinary Medicine, which granted me admission to veterinary school the fall of my freshman year of undergraduate. I got the equivalent of the golden ticket into vet school. After two years of undergraduate education I would enter veterinary school and continue blazing the way to my dreams. But somewhere during my sophomore year I started to have this rumbling deep in my soul, a murmur that I was on the wrong path and needed a little more perspective. With this murmur as my guide I petitioned to add an additional year of undergraduate studies, making my total college time seven years rather than six.
This is where we take a bit of a time warp. If it were not for that murmur driving me to make a change in my course of study, I would not have been living at a certain apartment complex from 2003 to 2005. A certain apartment complex that a group of guys moved into the fall of 2004. One of those guys, despite being a head taller than his roommates, blended into the background due to his quiet demeanor. It is that quiet, tall dude that will be celebrated tonight as he passes the gavel as WAWG president. Yep, he’s the farmer of my future. I would later learn that he was also the driver of an obnoxiously loud Chevrolet pickup that would blast out of the parking lot below my dorm room my sophomore year of undergraduate. The Lord knew. He had a plan.
I cruised through my final year of undergraduate and into vet school, staying strong on my plan. Throughout my first three years of college I worked in a research lab in the veterinary school and I continued to do so as I entered my professional training. I broadened my horizons by working with molecular biology tools such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), a tool made more commonplace in daily talk with the COVID pandemic, as well as DNA Microarrays. I studied listeriosis and bacterial antibiotic resistance. I even presented at a national conference . I was doing cool stuff! I went so far as to spend the summer between my final year of undergrad and my first year of vet school as an intern with ZymoGenetics, a biotech company in Seattle (one of the most awesome experiences I have had). But my heart kept murmuring that I was on the wrong track. There was something unsettling deep in my soul that this was not where I should be. Finally, in my second year of vet school, I heeded that murmur and changed directions.
This was not an easy feat. I had to back out of a couple different research oriented programs that I had fought to be part of. I had to tell my advisors, who had invested so much time and energy into me, that I was leaving my research track and migrating to a clinical track. I was going to be a plain old veterinarian. Not some fancy vet doing fancy research locked away in a laboratory. Just another James Herriot. As I look back on this point in my life I see how demeaning I was of my future, how little value I placed on my future career. But 41 year old me knows what 23 year old me didn’t: the Lord had a plan for me that would be greater than anything I could imagine, a plan that only He could bring to fruition. I just had to listen to the murmur.
As I reflect on the last two decades I see His fingerprints all over my life as I was gently nudged to this place repeatedly over the years. The road has not always been smooth, but the journey worth the effort. Had I continued stubbornly on my journey I know not how like would have turned out. But I listened to the murmur and am all the better for doing so. I’m part of a community, something I greatly cherish. I’m in the trenches helping to support something so important to me, something that was my anchor during the super rough points of my life before I truly gave my life to Jesus: the human/animal bond. I’m able to be a light in the world to the people I encounter every day at my office, a reflection of the light of Jesus in this dark world. I’m far from perfect in doing so, but I work daily to be a better representation of Him in this world. .
Is being married to a farmer easy? No, there have many rough patches in our road. Has it been rewarding beyond all imagination. Most definitely so! Our family has roots that run so deep they cannot be disturbed. We have had unique opportunities that I could never have imagined. One of which we celebrate tonight. My farmer stepped out of his comfort zone and stepped up several years ago. Little did we know that a pandemic would hit and he’d be placed in an unprecedented situation. I thank the Lord that I’ve had the honor and privilege to stand by his side throughout this journey. I look forward to the ups and down that await us in the years to come. I know God is still chuckling, but this time not because of my stubbornness but because His vision for our world is opening up, one formerly-stubborn to submitted soul at a time.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
jeremiah 29: 11-13
“Plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
This life I’m living after listening to the murmur has been abundant in so many ways. These following pictures are just a small glimpse of the lives that have touched me, the moments I’ve been able to be part of, and the beauty that surrounds me all because I listened and said “yes Lord”.
The Gravel Road Diaries 