So here is the truth about this blog. The reason I write this blog is that it is a kind of informal therapy to me. I usually have a problem and I find that if I write out advice to myself it helps me know what to do. If it just so happens that you, the reader, have a similar problem and are helped out by this post I'm glad of it. Well as you have probably already surmised I have a problem, and it is probably the biggest and hardest one I have ever faced so far.
As many of you know, I have serious academic ambitions. For almost ten years now my greatest desire has been to attend graduate school and get a degree in either social work or psychology. With the exception of a happy marriage, it was my greatest desire. So I did the work necessary to go, I killed my self in undergraduate schooling and graduated with a 3.84 in the behavioral sciences. I did volunteer work and researched the differences between social work and psychology; ultimately deciding that I wanted to pursue social work. So in November I sent off my hopes and dreams in a manila envelope and anxiously waited for response. That response came on Wednesday. I was rejected. Naturally I was surprised and disappointed that my first attempt was unsuccessful. When I informed others they gave me kind encouragement and tried to help me plan how to better prepare for next time. One of these good friends suggested that I get a blessing from my husband when he got home from work and I readily agreed to it.
He came home and gave me a powerful blessing that changed everything. I thought I knew what to expect. Encouragement and guidance on where to go and what to do so that I could go next year, but I was wrong. My blessing not only did not contain any of these things but it told me that God had work for me to do and that if I went to graduate school I could not accomplish it. Graduate school was a good path, but not my path and that I had to give up my dreams if I wanted to bless others. When the blessing was over both of us were shocked. I could not believe it. I had been certain that God wanted this for me. The guidance I received in this blessing hurt so much more than the rejection letter I received did.
I wish I could tell you that I acted like the good and great in story, but I didn't. I am not an angry or violent person at all. I hate violent movies and flinch at anger but not this time. I went into the kitchen, carefully selected our old crappy dishes and proceeded to smash all of them. I wanted to destroy everything. I wanted to take my collection of psychology-related books and light them on fire. I felt all of the pain of losing a beloved friend. I felt betrayed and wronged. I could not understand how my God could let me believe that I could go onto graduate school for so long and not tell me that it would never happen. I felt like nothing, I felt like no one.
My poor husband watched me destroy our old college dishes in obvious sorrow. When I was done turned to him in utter despair and asked, "What do I do now?" He took me in his arms and whispered, "We will figure it out together."
The next day I was angry still. I could not reconcile what had happened. It felt like God and pulled a bait and switch on me, but I knew God did not work that way. I questioned if God had tried to tell me I was going the wrong way and I could not recall a single instance. I still do not understand this and you know what? Maybe that isn't what is important. Perhaps I will never know.
What I do know is this:
After a lot of praying and crying I felt the spirit whisper this question, "If you did go to school would you be happy?"
I think I can safely claim that the spirit does not waste time with complicated explanations or grand displays. Its power has strength that does not make itself impressive by thunderous excess but rather by its soft simplicity.
I knew the answer to this question was no, I would not be truly happy. I found myself saying, "Okay God. Okay," and it was okay. It is okay.
I still do not know what God has in store for me and I feel, ironically, like that lost kid on the first day of school.
I know someday I will look back on this time and see the purposeful hand of the lord guiding me to something else, something greater. I can not see what it is yet but I have faith that it is there. If you find your dreams have shattered and you face the the utter bewilderment of the unseen and the unknown know this: there is meaning in the seemingly madness. We can walk by faith in this life or we can stumble and fall. There is hope for the lost, the depressed, and for the frightened. I really do believe this. I hope it is not inappropriate to conclude this post in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
