The other day I read this fantastic thread from @EmilyMcgowin on how she did it: studied her PhD. https://twitter.com/EmilyMcgowin/status/1308110066592210944?s=20

Then this morning as @bethallisonbarr and I talked through the rehearsal for our @faithandhistory virtual coffee, we bantered briefly about the whole PhD experience and how anyone completes one.

All that has led me to share a cautionary tale about my own experience, which involves some vulnerability about my weaknesses and the threats I overcame. I remember when I started the PhD process, @JonathanLeeman advised me to count the costs. He did so with much worry for me.

Similarly, @toddadamswilson cautioned me to be attentive to my family and my church, and not let either go wayward. He then asked me a few weeks later to join his staff, perhaps as a way of offering covering, while I undertook the huge task of studying at @TEDS with Doug Sweeney.

At first, it seemed like everything was going my way when I began PhD studies at @TEDS. Kendall and I just bought our second home not too far away from @CalvaryOakPark. My church gave me the freedom to commute to classes a couple times a week, while I fulfilled my pastoral role.

I was flourishing professionally as a pastor and as a student. Doug asked me to help him direct the Edwards Center at TEDS. I was getting to connect and network with pastor theologians through @CenPasTheo and academics at @TEDS.

I cranked through all my course-work at the same two-year clip as any full-time student. This involved really late nights in my study at Calvary and long weekends too.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, around the start of year three, I realized I had developed some real poor habits: diet, exercise, and sleep patterns were poor. These then affected my mental and heart habits, my feelings towards other and family.

I became jaded and felt overwhelmed. I had become neglectful to my wife and my children in many ways. Of course, we were all-in at Calvary and involved in everything, so it all looked great on the surface. But, real trouble was brewing under the surface with me personally.

It all came to a head in September 2018. I was trying to crank through the Latin course sequence at @TEDS unsuccessfully. I was really languishing after having recently dropped completely out @DavenantInst excellent Latin program.

I knew I was going to be at least delayed another semester because I hadn't finished my second research language. I was bitter and angry about a lot of things, and I blamed a lot of people rather than taking the responsibility myself.

My wife and now four children had been rooting for me all along during the past few years, but I had become hardened pretty seriously by the limitations I felt like they had put upon me.

There didn't seem to be enough time to read all the books, do all the research, pastor all the people, and care for all my family. I was also seriously bothered by how pastoral identity tended to lump me into what felt like a marginalized category in the academy.

Sometimes I'd turn in or share work and others would comment with surprise, "You're a pastor? This is really solid scholarship." I still get this some. People categorize identity and capability based on vocation too often. This caused my own identity crisis, if you will.

Am I a pastor or am I a professor? This question kept rattling in my head and was one that really haunted me. These identity question and all the other former bad habits brought me into the midst of a mid-life crisis.

In Oct 2018, I resigned from pastoral ministry. Part of the circumstances regarding my resignation were guised underneath the facade of burnout and vocational redirection, but the reality was my marriage was in crisis.

I still remember having lunch with Doug in November and he asking me, so what had happened? I told him something had to give. It was either PhD, pastoring, or my family. I chose to keep my family and finish my PhD. He was relieved my marriage would survive my PhD.

I steered my direction to focusing on completing my PhD and pulling my marriage back together. The later came far more easily because I have a truly amazing and loyal wife, one far better and more gracious than I deserve.

We started spending more time together as a family. We got help from my family to get through things financially. I started teaching part-time, which fed that teaching side in me that was met by pastoral ministry.

I got through my second language by switching to German. I finished German in Summer 2019, took comps in Fall 2019, and defended my proposal in Spring 2020. After six months and 200 pp. of writing, I'm nearing the end of my dissertation.

Sometimes I wonder was it the doctoral work or was it merely the onset of mid-life crisis. Regardless, the right cocktail of circumstance nearly capsized my life. However, a sturdy support structure was there for me to weather the storm.

Take this as a cautionary tale. Your school/advisors can offer some support. They even normally try to build that into a good doctoral program. Likewise, your peers in your program can offer some support, and your community or church can offer some support.

However, no one offers support like family can. Whether family means parents, brother or sister, a spouse, children, or whatever you designate as family in your life—family support is essential for PhD studies, at least in my case.

I don't think I know many doctoral student who didn't have to weather some sort of significant crisis during their studies. Almost always, they point to people who were there for them and helped them recover and flourish.

So, I guess the point is, if you think you can do it, study a PhD, and you think all you need is you, your trusty laptop, an archive, or some books—I would argue that you risk heading towards disaster. You need people too, to cheer and rally for you when things get real tough.