July 2026 On the Side: Making Time in the Middle
Getty Image via UnSplash
Carol Mason Shrader
My wonderful Wade and I just returned from a splendid European tour. Now let me interject here and say that I never imagined such a trip while we were in training and even this one was mostly about work. Wade was lecturing on both ends, we had meetings and panels together, even a work summit to improve lives of families with cerebral palsy diagnoses (like ours). But the middle? Oh, the middle was glorious.
In the middle we spent a week in France sitting at cafes in Paris, visiting the Louvre, Notre Dame, and traveling throughout Normandy trying to take in the rich history. Truly, it was just divine. (Ok, there was a heatwave in France that made it slightly uncomfortable but other than that…)
There is just something about being on a trip with my guy that is special no matter the destination. Maybe because no medical emergencies can call him away. No phone can interrupt our mealtimes. No emails will demand his attention.
Ah. Such a deep deep sigh.
I remember when my new groom of less than a year, asked me what I thought about him considering medical school. I smiled. My mouth said I would whole-heartedly support him – I was after all a fairly new bride. But even then, my heart was moaning pretty loudly that I need more attention than having a medical husband can afford.
“ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
Trusting God’s word, Wade and I began to take the steps necessary for him to go to medical school. Each was preceded in so much prayer, that by the time we moved to Chicago for him to actually begin school, my heart had been completely transformed with gladness in the anticipation of our calling as a family.
There were still fears. Still concerns. Could we navigate the medical school years? What would residency mean to our marriage? Could we have children – and nurture, love, and support them through the trying years of training?
God had the answers. Even before I had the questions.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one oft hem came to be.” Psalm 139:13,14,16 (NIV)
The truth, however, is that in the middle of day-to-day struggles, resting in God’s plan can be a challenge. The years have not dimmed the memory of me and my three toddlers dining at their child-sized table for most meals, because Daddy was not home. Nor have I forgotten the parent-teacher conferences I attended alone. Or the date nights cancelled for an emergency in the operating room.
But remembering that the ONE who knit me together in my mother’s womb, KNEW this was my path – our path as a family -- brings a comfort that motivates me to push through. Remembering that, brings a determination to not just “make-it-through” but to succeed, to flourish, to bring God glory in the calling of not just my husband, but the calling of our family.
And so, we did – and do – what we must do. During residency, we had years where our “holidays” did not align with a traditional calendar because we chose to re-arrange them to accommodate Daddy’s work schedule. Toddlers cannot read a calendar.
We had Easter Egg hunts in the call room. And family meals in the hospital cafeteria. This month, we will celebrate the 250th birthday of America quietly as he will be on call and most certainly in the hospital the whole weekend.
But, when he has time off, we celebrate. We choose to leave town – to allow distance to give us the necessary margin around work. In training years, we would take the kids to a hotel with an indoor pool when the budget – and weather – permitted not much else. Today, we have a vacation plan five years out – emphasizing the importance my husband puts on the quality family time we carve out.
Once when our trio were barely four, my daughter looked at her dad and asked him, “Why do you have your hotel voice on?” And we all laughed – because her very perceptive ears had picked up on what we had not even realized yet: Dad was able to completely relax when we were having our carved out, family-time.
Can I encourage you to start making that time a reality in your medical marriages this summer? No matter the budget – my children still smile when they pass a Motel 6 because we made some sweet memories in that chain of motels! Trust me that kids’ schedules get busy, doctors’ schedules are not light; but truly, the blessing you receive from quality time together- in the middle of everything- will be the ties that bind.
Blessings dear ones,
Carol
Carol Shrader loves to travel with her husband, Wade, and is looking forward to having all her adult crew together for a vacation this summer! But she is grateful for the calling on her family and supporting her doc as he serves God as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Wilmington, DE.
