On tornadoes, car wrecks, and finishing my PhD

Graduation (or quarantine) offers a good time to reflect on the past. As the saying goes, it marks the ending of one era and the “commencing” of the new. Although my PhD commencement is postponed to a date that is TBD, my thoughts and feelings are still mixed like every other graduate in every other context.



Why write this piece now, instead of after May 9 when my degree posts? Because this week I turned in my defended, revised, formatted, 212-page dissertation. Due to Coronavirus restrictions, I am not sure when my professors will be able to sign the signature page and then I’ll upload it to the ProQuest Dissertation database. I hope it will be soon. For the glass-is-half-empty guy in me, that means I’ve finished 99% of the work but can’t yet finish the 1%. But I’d prefer the glass-is-half full approach. I’d prefer to focus on the blessings. Let me explain why.



I celebrated Christmas 1989 paralyzed in the hospital. At four years old, a car accident on a black ice-filled Michigan highway left doctors questioning if I’d ever walk or talk again, let alone learn in a “normal” classroom with kids my age. After a few months in a wheelchair and afternoon medical rehab, I slowly relearned balance while quivering atop a balance beam and being told to enunciate words as I voiced them. My extraordinary recovery was, according to the papers, nothing short of miraculous.



God broke into my life loudly after that period. I met Jesus and vowed to follow him forever. It goes without saying that it is the best thing that has ever happened to me.



Interestingly, this is not the first time I’ve graduated somewhere and strange, life-changing events occurred. On February 5, 2008, during my last semester at Union University, an F-4 tornado ripped apart our campus in a split-second whoosh. With a strength I can only categorize as from God, I went into crisis mode and helped lead fellow students out of crumbling dorms and around downed telephone wires. Hundreds of thousands of dollars damage. Thousands of lives changed. Zero lives lost. A week later, I went back to student teaching but knew I’d never be the same.

May 2008. Bachelor of Arts in History. Union University.

October 5, 2012 was the day Jessica and I landed in Bucharest. Naively thinking I knew what to do as a missionary, I look back on those first few months and either roll my eyes or (if I’m by myself) give myself a literal facepalm. Jessica and I were basically newlyweds, having been married about a year and a half. Praise God that, in early December 2012, our supervisors introduced us to Beni and Anda Mogos, with whom we’ve served at Biserica Crestina Baptista Agapia for almost eight years. I graduated in December 2012 with my second seminary degree, a Masters in Theology.

Graduation December 2011, Masters of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

Finishing my PhD in this odd season, then, does not disappoint me. The oddity and ups and downs has a sort of emotional familiarity. True, it is unfortunate that I won’t don my graduation regalia, take photos with family and friends and profs, or spend a day at Disneyland (which we were planning as a surprise for our kids). But these are minor setbacks that will soon be remedied as postponement dates are announced. Six years of part-time PhD work at a top-notch Christian university, studying with some incredible scholars (in California, Switzerland, and Thailand) who pushed me to think and write and publish and teach for God’s glory, absolutely has been worth it.



And, for all this, I am thankful.