Relief can be a powerful thing, can’t it?  In this moment, I find the physical symptoms of relief particularly interesting– that huge exhalation, the relaxing of the shoulders, the open mouth and release of laughter, or sometimes even tears.  Today was kind of like that, but not for me…

When I married my husband, I gained two additional little sisters, bringing me to a total of three.  Score!!  What a good deal!  (And I married into a seriously big, and seriously awesome family– double the family, double the fun!!)

All three of my little sisters, including the one by birth and two by marriage, are A-MAZ-ING.  They are bright, talented, brilliant, and passionate people.  All three of them put heart and soul into the things that they do, and today, I’d love nothing more than to embarrass the pants off one of them.

The oldest of my three little sisters (who is in reality only 3 months younger than me) is going to be a doctor.  A surgeon, even.  I’m pretty sure that she decided on that as a career when she was about five.  Follow-through is certainly one of her strong suits.

Seven weeks ago, after completing her third year of medical school, Sister Doctor (yes, let’s do this like they name the maunts in the Oz books, shall we? Sister Doctor, Sister Athletic Trainer, and Sister Engineer…) took the second big, big, big, future-determining test of her medical career.  Yikes.  Doctor-dom… stressful stuff.

Like I mentioned previously, Sister Doctor is brilliant and passionate and very good at what she does.  I was never worried about her doing well on this test.  But dang.  She was.  And I know that the last seven weeks have been torture for her as she thought and rethought and obsessed about every potential answer she may have gotten wrong to the point that she made herself frequently physically ill.

Imagine my concern when I got a phone call today, she was in tears, and she mentioned her test score.  When she gave me the number I was confused because it seemed really high to me, and that didn’t quite jive with the tears I was hearing.

But then again, God made us like teapots, and crying is a really good way to release the steam… and those tears were tears of extreme relief.  The release of seven weeks worth of incredible anxiety and stress.

Turns out, Sister Doctor didn’t just ace the test, she blew it out of the dang water.  She wrote her own ticket.  She will be a surgeon, and she will have her pick of programs.  And I can only imagine how big that relief must feel.  Big enough to result in tears, and for Sister Doctor, that is exceptionally uncommon, suggesting to me that this relief must have been truly BIG.  Monumental even.

So tonight, we celebrate!  And someday, when Sister Doctor is using her vast and impressive talents to cut, sew, and ultimately heal, the world will celebrate with all of us!

Thank goodness for that relief!!