Leap Year Madness

What a crazy day Ben and I had yesterday. As you all know match day for us is March 10th, but it appears that it came a bit early for us. One of the sites that Ben applied to does not participate in the match and they called us at 7:30am to our surprise to offer him a position. Now before I go any farther I want to tell you about our week leading up to Friday. On Tuesday we decided that we would cut out some distractions in our day to day life and spend more time in devotion w/God until Friday @9pm (match deadline) and really spend time praying together, praying on our own and that God would give us peace through this process, we also prayed that God would either open doors or close doors for us and as of late He's been closing doors a lot and we've been getting very discouraged thus it seemed like the obvious thing to do. So on Wednesday we submitted our ranking list and prayed for God's will to be done and also pray for this non-participating site that God would close the door (like He has lately) or open it wide so that we would know this is the door He wanted us to walk through.

Ok so back to yesterday, I'm in the bathroom trying to get ready for work while Ben's on the phone and I'm just pacing the bedroom, I can't get the mascara on my lashes for anything and I'm texting people and I'm praying and the dog is thinking I'm going nuts.....and really I think I was:)

I just can't believe that this is really happening, Ben and I were totally ready to go through the match we had submitted our rank list, we hadn't heard from this site so we just assumed this other site, like all the others would just give us the polite "thank you, but your not what we're looking for right now, best of luck to you elsewhere" line we've been hearing. So after getting off the phone and Ben calling his mom and sister and me calling my sister we head off to work frantically. The funniest thing happened to me while at work though.....I got that horrible all of a sudden stomach flu and had to go home immediately to "get better" hahahahahahahahaha! Let's thank God for not striking me down for fibbing while fasting! Anyhow I get home to "get better" and I sit down and start reading the book of James, and let me tell you I didn't have to go past verse 9 in the 1st chapter to realize what I needed to do, so then I get my devotional out and read it for the day and its Joshua 1:1-9 and my whole devotional is talking about how Joshua followed God's directions exactly and God blessed him for his obedience. Here's an excerpt that really spoke to us to whether we would accept the position:

"Sadly, many believers are less determined to obey. Even when the Lords instructions seem perfectly sensible, internal pressure can still make us second guess what we should do. Sometimes, we don't trust God enough to take a big step of faith. Or we may question whether we heard Him correctly. Another possibility is fear of failure. But we should realize this: When we seek God's will, walk in His way, and obey what we believe He is saying, He graciously works-even through our missteps-for our good (Romans 8:28)"

After I read that I knew exactly what we were supposed to do...I was just hoping Ben knew that too and that we were on the same page. So after praying and thanking God for his answer and talking to my sister a bunch and finally getting a chance to talk to Ben, I knew when he asked me "Katie, what do you want to do" I knew how to respond.

Folks WE'RE GOING TO ST. LOUIS, MO!!!!!!!!!! We are ecstatic, we couldn't be any happier and we couldn't be at peace more. I feel like we got our #1 choice and it's because we are going exactly where God wants us. It is amazing to say the least to feel God so strongly and to see His will being done in us.

The director at St. Louis was extremely excited that Ben took the position and couldn't wait to call the director of Neuropsychology to tell him.

I'm so proud of Ben! He got a formal post-doc in neuropsychology at a VA!!!!!

We will be 4hrs away from Brandon, Natalie and Allie, 6hrs from Matt & Lynette (ben's cousin) and 8hrs from Jesse & Lynn! Its rains more in St. Louis than Oregon and so goodbye brown and hello green, flowers and trees!

Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your prayers and well wishes and support. Many of you who read this know exactly what Ben and I were going through and you yourselves are going through the same thing right now and we too pray for you!