Get Out of the Way

Today has been a day of mixed emotions. When I arrived at school one of the first things my classmates asked me was "Did you get your packet?" Puzzled I didn't know what they were talking about. I quickly discovered that most of my classmates had received their acceptance letters for the nursing portion of the program. I had not received mine. I sat in class worried. What if I wasn't good enough to get in? What if I had to come to class and admit to my classmates that I did not get in? That would definitely be a lesson in humility.


I started this journey to go back to school more than a year ago. I am in my 5 full-time semester of prerequisite classes before starting the nursing portion of the program. Eventually I want to go to Physicians Assistant school, but I needed to start some place. I had prayed and prayed about what I was suppose to do with my life now that the kids are getting older. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed staying home with the kids, but now they are requiring less and less of me. I kept asking God to show me what it was He had planned for me. This was not an easy process. I struggled with direction for a long time. Finally, one day at a Women of Faith conference the answer became very clear to me. I was to go to nursing school.

So here I am 5 semesters later with 16 more to go before I will be completely finished with school. The road has not always been easy. I've had to work hard and learn to really prioritize what's important. For a stay at home mom who was used to having the house and dinner done a certain way, re-prioritizing has not been an easy process. On top of that during my very first semester of school I received notice that my husband was injured while on a deployment. He was coming home with a broken leg and little did I know he would require 2 more surgeries once he got home.

For some reason, in spite of all the challenges that I faced during these past semesters, God has found a way to keep pushing me forward. Gentle words of encouragement from friends or family, random notes in my mail box, and people coming to help me with children so I can study while my husband is on a trip. Giving up or quitting was not an option. Again, this road has not been easy but God is making a way through our sea of challenges. He is leading the path before me and so here I sit. Would I come home to an acceptance packet or would I have to learn a lesson in humility when I went to class on Friday?

I called my daughter, who was home from school and asked her to get the mail. I told her I was looking for an envelope from my school. She went and checked the mail and informed me that there was indeed an envelope. I braced myself for what I asked next. "Is it a large envelope or a regular envelope?" My daughter then informed me that it was a large manila envelope. A huge sense of relief came over me. I knew what it was. It was my acceptance letter. I then had to explain to my daughter that if they were going to send me a rejection letter it would have been in a regular envelope and not a large envelope with lots of extra paper. :)

As I opened my letter from the school I became teary eyed. Once again I doubted the course I was on. I doubted that I had understood the direction God had wanted me to go. Once again He is gently guiding me down the path. I have often said I need to pray and get out of the way. Let God go to work. More often then not when I do see an answer to prayer or get an answer that I want, I find myself trying to steer my ship in the direction that I think it should go. During this entire school process I have done my best to do the work I need to do and leave the rest to God. I can't wait to see what is next in this journey.