By Kristen Entwistle

My family is not the ‘flower-sending’ type.  When I was in high school musicals, other kids would get flowers at the end of the show from their parents or friends, but I would get a hug and maybe some ice cream.  At college graduation, it seemed like everyone got flowers.  I got a hug and a mission trip to China.  I don’t think I ever felt like I got the short end of the stick by not getting flowers.

Yesterday was a pretty important day in my graduate school career.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with a scientific graduate school PhD program, here’s how it works: You get accepted, pick a lab, take your few classes, and start working on your dissertation research from the get-go.  At the end of your second year/beginning of your third year (depending on your program) you have to pass what are known as qualifying, comprehensive, or preliminary examinations.  For my program that entailed (1) a written NIH style proposal on the research that I have done and will continue to do for my dissertation, (2) a formal presentation on that research to a public audience, and (3) up to two hours after that presentation where your committee (made up of five faculty members) can ask you any question they want.  At the end of that two hours, you can either pass, pass with condition, or fail.  If you fail, you’re done.  You can leave the program with a masters degree, but you cannot continue on to your PhD.  If you pass with condition, you have to redo something (such as rewriting your proposal), and can continue on to your PhD if you pass the conditions.  If you pass, you can continue on to achieve your PhD for the next how-many-ever years it takes.    Suffice it to say, lots of stress and probably the smallest hoop that you have to jump through for this persistence degree.   I’d liken it to threading yarn through a needle meant for thread – it’s possible and people have done it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  So, yesterday was my preliminary exam.  And (spoiler alert), I passed.  Praise God!

And so, when flowers showed up at my door yesterday, I was a little surprised.  “Who in the world would have sent me flowers?” I thought.  And as I opened the card attached to them, I was overwhelmed with emotion.  My family had sent me flowers.  My family – the non-flower-sending type – had sent me flowers.  As I read the rest of the card, which said that they were so proud of me, I was in tears.  Why, you may ask, was I in tears?  Because these flowers symbolized something even greater than my parents and brother and sister being proud of me.  They gave me a glimpse of hope that it has been and will be worth it.

Worth it to keep fighting this exhausting disease day after day.

Worth it to have pursued a higher education degree, and to keep pursuing it.  And to be encouraged that I can do it.

Worth it to potentially make someone else’s life better.  I think particularly of my siblings, whose children and children’s children may have a better life because of the drugs that are being developed even now.

Worth it to have struggled so much these past three months – with living life alone, struggling with feeling worthless and inadequate, wondering if this is really where I’m supposed to be.  Praying that God would give me the strength do get through just one more day at a time.  And worth it to keep trusting God that He will provide what I need even when it may not be what I want.

Worth it to keep studying and reading and researching my own disease.  It’s hard.  Really hard, sometimes.  I can’t leave work at work.  It comes home with me.  I live it.

And those flowers meant that someone was proud of me.

My parents – who have raised me, loved me, encouraged me, and believed in me from the start; my younger brother – who has been my constant encourager and cheerleader, reminding me that God has a bigger plan than I can even imagine, and who is more mature than any kid his age (and many older) that I know; and my younger sister – who has always loved others through her words and actions, who challenges me to be a better person, and who is brilliant and smart and beautiful – they were proud of me.

And not because I had done something – no, there is no way that I could do any of this on my own.  But they were proud of me because of what Christ has done through me, His imperfect vessel of hope and love and encouragement.

And when I am tempted to lose sight of the fact that God is still working, God is still sovereign, and that He still knows what is best for me, He provides me with people like my Mom and Dad and brother and sister – to send me flowers that mean so much.

Thank you for believing in me, encouraging me, and loving me – and for sending me flowers.