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BSN, career change, children, college, faith, family, friend, girl, joy, mom, mother, new beginings, nurse, random, sadness, school, service, sophmore, starting over, student, wife
I have started and dumped several posts over the last week. What I wanted to say or write would not come out correctly, or the timing was off. Yesterday I started a post on time management, and low and behold, I had no time to finish it! As the semester rolls along, some tasks become easier, so become harder, and determination sometimes wears a little thin. This is my first full semester back into my education, and the transition has not been entirely smooth. There are days I don’t know how to respond to my daughter when she asks when I’ll have more time to be around for her. There are days when I can’t pull myself together enough to get done what is needed for everyone else. There are the notes that aren’t getting signed for my daughter’s school, sheets on the bed that are not changed often enough, missed showers, chapters that are browsed instead of read for class…the list seems never-ending. When I am in my nursing classes, the education feels so natural, and I feel like I am where I was always supposed to be. Finding my way through my large lecture classes on anatomy and physiology are another matter, and my online only writing intensive course is going far less splendidly. I’d like some days to fill out a petition for adding 6 hours to the day. I wonder as I lay awake in bed at night how I am going to make it through the next day. The sun rises, and the sun sets, and my children grow every day with or without me around. Where is the pause button for life?
This morning on the bus ride to campus I realized that I forgot my “for fun” book that I like read on the commute. I decided to turn on my Ipod instead to tune out a couple of enthusiastic girls behind me who were way to chatty before sun rise. I have an Ipod shuffle, so I don’t have many options for choosing the music that plays. Some good music randomly played, some music I was less enthusiastic about I skipped past, and then the song I needed to hear began to play. The beauty of a random shuffle of music on a dim and sleepy morning is that when the right song comes on, the day is suddenly purpose filled and beautiful. That song for me this morning was “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” off of my University of Minnesota, Morris concert choir cd, recorded live at the Minnesota Music Educators conference in 2000. It is a beautiful and simplistic christmas song. I actually hated to sing it back in the day. The alto part was just “oooooo” continuously for pages with different notes. I think the alto part sang a total of four words. The melody was carried back and forth between the tenor and soprano parts. However, being removed from the performance by ten years allowed me to just hear the beautiful sound of all those voices in perfect harmony. The combined effect of the soft and smooth lines brought to me peace I have not felt for a long time. I replayed the short song over, and over, and over. I heard the words, I felt the message, I relaxed in the recognition of the lords enveloping love. Soft tears weld up in my eyes as my whole body relaxed. It’s not the first time I have felt the overwhelming calm that comes with the quiet of prayer. I think that it was nearly a half hour of clicking repeat before I even realized that I was indeed praying. On my list of neglected tasks is prayer and meditation. The lord took over and brought it straight to me. Our God is one of healing, caring, and peace. A God that has formed us out of love to do his work. I believe that the work I am preparing for is a fulfillment of the purpose I was created with. How loved we are. How blessed we are if we recognize and open ourselves to the moments in our life when God takes the wheel.
I started this morning with fear and apprehension. I am continuing my day with renewed focus and calm. I have been given the gift today of remembering that Gods love is bigger than my fears. My list of blessings is more vast than my list of set backs and failures. I am reminded that my short comings are advantages when viewed from another angle. I am here in the nursing program because I responded to my deep desire to do more, a calling that would not be quiet. I am still at the beginning of this road, but I do not travel it alone. You are on your own road, but you do not go it alone either. We go together as beloved children of God. Today, God was in my Ipod.