Take the First Step!

Two years ago I was about to start my fourth year as a special education aide.  I was ready to set up my  closet  classroom and begin another year of teaching special ed math and reading, and not really being paid for all the work I was doing, if I'm being completely honest.  I was completely not at peace about the whole situation.  At the same time, I was thinking that I would probably become pregnant soon, and somehow that would fix all of my problems.

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One year ago I had quit the whole teaching gig, and was totally terrified about what that would mean for my little family of two.  I didn't share on the blog much about how terrified I was, but so much could have gone wrong!  I was ready for two semesters of full-time classes at a school about 45 miles away from my house.  I was about to pay thousands of dollars to an institution, and I had no guarantee that there would ever be a degree at the end of that.  I wasn't going to get a second bachelor's degree for these 32 credit hours I was about to take, and these credit hours also weren't counting toward my master's degree at all.  As my favorite professor put it, I was in "nowheresville" as far as my career was concerned.  Yet this year of classes was necessary in order to start a graduate program in speech pathology. I was taking a total leap of faith, not knowing if I'd ever make it into a master's speech pathology program.  Anyone who tries for a speech-language pathology degree has every odd stacked against them.  Most programs have between 250-300 applicants, and they only accept 30-40 students.  In my mind, I had a much greater chance of getting pregnant than ever getting into this program.  

However, I felt a call to just take that first step and try.  As much as I wanted my plans of becoming a mother and devoting my life to my kids to work out, God just wasn't giving me a peace about that.  I knew I had to do something.  As I read in a Joyce Meyer devotional, God's plan is sometimes like an automatic door at the grocery store: you have to move forward in order to open the door and get somewhere!  If we take a leap of faith, God will always catch us and carry us to where we need to be. 

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Today I sit here knowing that the chances of my having a baby in the past two years were much higher than the chances of me getting into an SLP grad program.  And yet here I am, ready to start classes in less than two weeks.  There were so many bumps in the road.  I worked my butt off last year trying to get good enough grades and make a good enough impression to get into grad school. Financially, things shouldn't have added up in the past year since I was barely working at all substitute teaching. I took the GRE and didn't get the best score in the world.  I was incredibly sick with respiratory issues the day of the Akron interview, and could barely speak, and coughed through most of it.  I got put on two waiting lists, and thought it was all over.  I started making back-up plans about what I would do since it didn't look like I was going to be going to grad school after all.  

And then one day during finals week, I got the email from Kent State University, saying that they wanted me in their program!  And that day I realized God had been orchestrating this thing every step of the way.  

And just to further blow me away, a month later I got an email from Akron, saying they wanted me in their program too!  I immediately accepted, since Akron had been my first choice all along.  Soon after accepting, I received an email from my favorite professor saying, "Yay!  I hoped you would say yes!"  In that moment, I just knew I was where I belonged.  

My prayer for the past year has been that God would open doors and close them according to His will.  He opened two doors when I was accepted to both colleges, and it was just like He was telling me, "Hey, I got this.  There is a reason you haven't become pregnant in the past two years.  There is a reason I opened these doors for you even though the odds were totally against you.  I told you you could trust me!"

So in two weeks, I will begin this two year journey.  I used to think that God's plan for me was to be a mother and work in women's ministry or a young mother's group at my church.  Now I see that that was my plan.  God's plan is that I will be able to give people the gift of communication!  I will be able to love them through my therapy.  It's not the same plan I had for myself, but that doesn't mean it's any less special or important!  

I've had to let go of my dream to be a stay-at-home mom someday.  But my new dream is so close to my heart right now!  I have been feeling insecure and nervous about it, but today I realize I have no reason to.  My fears will do nothing but hold me back!  Today I'm letting go of them, because I am ready to let God do His thing!  

I guess I'm just writing all of this today to let you know that God's plan is always better, and there's no point in fighting it!  I fought it for way too long!  Now I realize that one way or another, His plan is going to come through.  Stop fighting it!  I always say that God will lead  you with His peace.  If you're in a situation where you're not feeling His peace, do something about it!  Take that first step.  That's all it takes, and He will take over from there!