Bishops and life decisions

(Warning: This is a long, venting post. You'll need a minute to get through it. Sorry.) So, I got a job yesterday. Yes, a job outside the home that will actually reward me with monetary benefits. It's a job working as a per diem Speech Pathologist when Jacob is in preschool. With him in school 2 days a week, I have a little more time and a little less money, so I thought I'd give working a shot. And, it was easy to get this job. Really easy. I got on the internet, googled job openings for speech language pathologist in Virginia, and bam, up came a long list of opportunities. I applied online, sent my resume in, and a week later, I'm employed. Wa-hoo! The other thing is, I know I'm qualified for this job. Not only does my resume make me look qualified, I actually can do this job. I've done it before, and know I can do it again. In a word, I am marketable. Good thing I didn't listen to Bishop Bubblehead. Names have been changed, for obvious reasons. Bishop Bubblehead was my bishop when DH and I got engaged. At that time, DH and I were both far from being done with our education. I was just starting graduate school, and DH had about 2 more semesters in his undergraduate at BYU. We decided to wait until he had graduated to get married. We looked at our future goals, worked out the details, and felt we had a good plan. We booked the Salt Lake Temple for a date 7 and a half months into the future, and settled into the craziness of trying to go to school and plan a wedding at the same time. Bishop Bubblehead told us we were making a mistake. He called me into his office, and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to quit graduate school and follow DH back to BYU, to be with him while he finished. I could always continue my education later. "But my graduate program doesn't allow you to just stop and then start up again. It's a pretty regimented program, with clinical hours and things that need to be completed by a certain date," I explained. "You haven't even looked into it,though, have you," he said, accusingly. "You haven't explored any alternative educational options at all." I admitted, guiltily, that I hadn't. I didn't want to. I wanted to finish as soon as I possibly could. He then said, "And I'll bet you are planning to put off having children until after he finishes law school, too. I'm telling you right now, putting off marriage and family for education is a mistake. You need to really pray about this, and see if you can't get married in December. Otherwise, really, you might not make it to the temple." (DH and I had gotten engaged at the end of October.) I called DH in tears after this, and told him about the conversation. Luckily, DH said he would have told the bishop to stick it, and that we were honestly doing the best thing for both of us, and for our future family. The bishop continued to bug us, (well, me, mainly. DH was in Utah most of the time) but we held firm and got married in May, 7 months after our engagement. DH had graduated and deferred law school for a year so I could finish at GW, and I was in the home stretch of my program. Things looked good. I did what I needed to do to get licensed, and Jacob was born 2 months before our 3rd wedding anniversary. So now, 6 years later, I can get a job almost at the drop of a hat that is flexible and fits into my schedule as a Mommy. That would have never happened if I hadn't finished my degree and gotten my license. And it makes me a little bit mad that Bishop Bubblehead was not concerned with this particular aspect of my life, that he was not considering the long term consequences of me giving up a graduate program, just because it separated me and my intended for a few months. I understand that his main concern was getting us to the temple, and that 7 months is a long time for unmarried people to stay chaste, but I wish that he would have had enough faith in us to realize that getting to the temple was just as important, if not more so, to us (which it was), and therefore, we would somehow manage it (which we did). I wish his counsel could have included ideas about DH juggling HIS education, (which actually ended up being the case), instead of accusingly putting the burden of giving things up squarely on my shoulders. And what is even more disturbing to me is that I was ready to listen to his counsel. I was, really. It was DH who scoffed at it, who didn't give it a second thought because he knew that we had prayfully and faithfully set up a plan that was best for us, and that this bishop had no business telling us what to do. I'm glad that I have a husband who knows who is responsible for receiving the revelations for his life, and when counsel from a bishop is counsel from God, and when it is counsel from a guy who has had to deal with too many hormonal driven singles. I'll keep you posted on the job. Who knows? Maybe I'll hate it, and want to quit. But at least I have that option.