In His time

Growing up I was the kid that always had a journal hidden somewhere and a book of poems that I wrote and collected. I had pen pals from 4 different countries at one time and when we moved home from Michigan I wrote to my friends and a few others for the first several months and into the first year. That was a total of about 20 pen pals in Michigan alone. Think about the postage my parents paid for!

In high school I had the same English teacher for tenth and twelfth grades. Ms. Alvarez encouraged my writing and I would turn in “extra credit papers” just to get her to critique them. She used to teasingly tell me that she was going to have to start charging me a fee for editing. I turned in papers on anything and everything. She even made suggestions for topics a few times.

I loved to write. It was part of who I was. When it came time for college though, I applied to nursing school. I remember Ms. Alvarez asking me what I was doing after high school and telling her I was heading to the beach to nursing school. I will never forget the conversation standing in the door way of her classroom.
“Nursing school? You aren’t going somewhere for an English major?”
“No, I applied to this little school and got in. They only accept a few girls each year. It’s really an honor to be accepted.”
“Honor or not, you won’t be hearing congratulations from me on that. You were meant to write, girl, and you’re wasting it.”

I was sorry I had disappointed her. I learned a lot in her class and I wasn’t walking away from writing. In truth though, I did sort of. I continued to write all through nursing school and through the days of illness that brought me home from there. I wrote when I had to quit because I had missed too much time and when I decided not to return. I wrote when I got married and when I started my family. I wrote about my family and letters to my family. I kept journals and wrote poetry and kept the piles of books hidden in the back of my closet.

Years passed and I continued to write never really thinking about what to do with “it”. But from high school to present there was a continuing longing to be in school. Not necessarily for an English degree, but a deep sense that I wasn’t done. Coming to know the Lord and see him shape my writing in a more defined direction was interesting. I had no idea what God was doing, I just wanted to be obedient and serve him. So I wrote. I wrote women’s Bible studies and homeschool devotionals; I wrote letters to my children and recorded our journey through the adoption process. I wrote letters of encouragement to some my youth group kids and to my babysitters, to my family, and as ministry to those far from home. I used the opportunities I had to write. All the time my longing was to do something to further my education.

For a long season I didn’t think I would actually ever go back to school. I was busy with a house full of children and homeschooling. At the encouragement of friends and family I made an effort to have something published and it was not accepted by any publisher. (Of course, I had no idea what I was doing and just sent the manuscript out willy-nilly to any publisher I ran across an address for.)

By that time, the longing to return to school had become a push in my spirit and I started to talk to Rich about it. At first he didn’t say much to encourage or discourage. When the church we attend offered a Bible school with several college level courses we both agreed this was something I needed to do. Those courses were a strong layer building toward something I was truly unaware God was doing. Then in the fall of 2002 I decided to do some distance learning classes through the community college. I did three and loved it. Then the funds and the time dissolved and I was not able to continue. I was disappointed, but I had learned to trust these things to the Lord along the way. At that time I was thinking of a teaching degree. As the years passed by and the longing continued and even increased, a more defined direction began to emerge.
In late spring of 2008 our church’s bulletin contained a paper that advertised a satellite program that would be initiated in our classrooms in relationship with a seminary out of Plymouth Florida. I looked at the paper and I remember thinking, “Lord, I would so love to do that!” But I put the paper aside and moved on. The next week the paper was once again in the bulletin and something stirred in my heart almost in an ache in desire toward that. I thought there was no way we could afford this and I still had kids at home and now was also committed to watching some of the grandchildren for several hours a week. It just didn’t seem possible.

By the third or fourth week though I was really stirred in my spirit and I prayed about it. I simply felt the nudge of the spirit to talk to my husband. So after church, standing in our little galley kitchen eating lunch together, I approached the idea. He grinned wide like the Cheshire cat and said, “I’ve been wonderin’ what was takin’ you so long.” We didn’t make the decision for me to go that day but we did agree I should attend the meeting that the church was holding for more information and that we would both continue in prayer concerning it.

In the fall of 2008 I started the B1 program (Be Successful in Your Ministry 1) in Love of Christ Church as part of the satellite program for International Seminary. In the last two years I have learned so much and my thinking has been challenged with books I would not have picked up on my own. My writing has taken a more defined purpose, although walking three paths at once it almost seems. The Lord continues to bless us with the means, the time, and more.

Through the years of waiting for this day, I studied and leaned into whatever the Lord set before me in an effort to serve him in love. I never expected to receive anything back except a strong relationship with my Savior. Thursday I found a moment of grace that reminded how kind and abundant our God is.
I applied to the school for what they refer to as “life credits” this spring at the end of the second year. These are credits given for personal study and ministry participation. I turned the paper in and heard nothing for a few weeks. Finally I called the school and left a message on Friday afternoon. Monday morning the woman in the Distance Learning Dept. called me back and said that I did not have enough marked on my paper to receive credit toward anything. Ok, I was a little disappointed, but I really believed that if I had earned it somehow in life then it would be granted to me. So I set my head toward year three. She wasn’t done though. She told me that the supervisor had suggested that I fill the paper out again and add to it all that I had learned. He had said that from the summary I included that I had not taken enough credit. So she email me the form and I printed it off, sat at my table with catalog and reviewed what the classes were and whether I had already learned it along the way. When I completed the paper I thought to myself, “I made a mistake here. This is too much.” And so I allowed it to sit for 2 days before finally deciding to fax it in.

I sent it with Rich Thursday morning to fax to the school and in the first two or three hours after he left I picked up the phone to call and tell him not to at least four times. I never did though and he faxed it. A short while after he did my phone rang and the number was a Florida number. I answered hello and heard the woman’s voice I had spoken with on Monday saying “I have some very good news for you.” And she proceeded to tell me that I was skipping year three and heading into year four.

I filled out the enrollment and mailed it Thursday afternoon. I am now a senior in the International Seminary Bachelor of Biblical Studies program. I tell you that not to brag. But to remind you. Our God is gracious and his word promises to restore the years that the locusts have eaten. There were years when I felt I had missed God’s calling by going to nursing school and not to the university for an English major. I even felt that the longing was not to be fulfilled because I missed God’s plan. But you can’t miss God’s plan. Not if you are seeking his face and your desire is Him. He works the events and choices in your life to line up with the path he wants you on. He can do that. He is God after all. It is comforting to know that my choices when placed in His care bring me full circle into His will and His way in His time.

Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart.” When your highest desire becomes him and him alone, he will answer you in abundance. Now that does not mean that I was always in that state of mind either. He also knows we are dust and that we fall. That is why there is mercy (not getting what we deserve) and grace (getting what we don’t deserve). But setting my heart on him was something that still rings true. If he takes the schooling away without the chance to complete it, I know that while initially disappointed, I would in the long run know it is his plan and so be at peace in that. Delight yourself in the Lord; that has been the key for me. Setting him in that place of honor above all else in the heart. I believe that longing that pushed me was a push of the Spirit toward the path that He desired for me. As I turned my face toward him he continued to shape and call, to pull and open the doors as they needed to be opened. There is nothing that is wasted. It is all useful in his hands and in his timing. I felt like I missed it many times and that I had wasted time and money along the way. But He had it all under control. He knows our heart’s desire and trusting it to Him is never a mistake.