The Next Couple Years?

Many of us are at that point in life where we are wondering, 'just what am I going to do with my life?" and "what is God's plan for me?" It's been really cool seeing how God has been working in so many lives around me; narrowing opportunities, closing doors, surprising us with with entirely new plans that look nothing like what we've been dreaming of for the past 20 years of growing up. God you're so cool like that, always keeping us on our toes, daring us not to get too comfortable. Well before I came to college, I wanted to be a veterinarian for the longest time. I love animals, especially your domestics, dogs and cats. I worked at a vet clinic the summer before I came to K-State and decided it wasn't for me. All the scratching, vomiting, biting, fecal swabs, grooming mishaps etc...along with a nasty manager and a two-day dog hunt, got me thinking that this might not be a great career option. But I really liked those science classes I was taking, and wondered where I could still use those. Hey nursing! A lot of my mother's friends are nurses, so I got to do some job-shadowing, and my sister-in-law is also a nurse. These are some of the best women in my life and I love what they do. God is continually opening my eyes to how much nursing is a mission field, tending to his sick, and showing love in such a tangible way. (did you know that it used to be common practice for nurses to give their patients a massage every night before bed? I know I'd feel better) I would really love to be a nurse, I feel like I would be such a great tool in the kingdom with those kinds of skills, and that I could do something about the poverty that we see around us (well not around most of us in suburbia in our upper-middle class, safe lives) but the poverty we see in the world. But dammit, I didn't put in the all-out effort to make my grades impeccable(I'm sitting right above a 3.0), SLACKER!!!! And now I'm unable to get into nursing school. I feel a couple of things because of the predicament I've put myself in:

• I've let God down and myself by not doing my best in everything, that I've wasting the smarts he gave me with idle laziness
• doubt: is nursing school really His plan? or did I make that up? should I try to find something in the management/marketing field where the classes come so easy to me that I don't have to study?...these kinds of thoughts make me real with all the unknowns that I haven't looked at yet here in my almost-graduate state.

For now I'm keeping my fingers crossed about the nursing schools I've been wait-listed for (2), applied @ Rockhurst for their accelerated nursing program, and I'm looking into getting a job as a CNA with St. Luke's Hospital for this coming Fall.

This weekend (after the women's retreat!!!) I'm going with a group to KC to look into the heart of Kansas City, some of the roughest part of town, the "murder factory". I'm so excited about what's God's doing with the hearts in this group of kids. I can see Him moving and inspiring. Yes, this is a dangerous vision of rescuing a house or apartment from poverty and neglect, and trying to live a simple life as young white kids in an entirely black neighborhood, but God, I feel you calling, and I'm not afraid.

above all my heart sings, "Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee"

meaning, elizabeth: consecrated for God