Happy New Year! -- Happy New Reason to Blog!

It's a Happy New Year and a Happy New Reason to Blog! Why? Because I've finally made the decision to pursue becoming a doctor! and my hope is that this blog will serve as a testimony to this journey that I intend to take. And I think this will be a great story because, boy oh boy, do I ever the decks stacked against me! I've had this thought of becoming a physician since I was in high school, even though I didn't realize that what it was back then, and it has stuck with me 13 years later.  Yup! I'm a 30 something with a lot to do to make this dream happen!  I've heard people ask the question: if you didn't have to worry about money, bills, obligations to others, anything at all, what would you do with your life? For me, the answer has always been become a doctor. But those bills, obligations to others, and everything else has always gotten in the way.  I was fortunate enough to end up in nursing and for the most part, I thoroughly enjoy working as a nurse, it's an incredible profession, and believe me when tell you, nurses rock! but for me, there has always been this small nagging feeling that this isn't my ultimate niche.  It's close, but not quite right.  I can't explain exactly why, it's just how I feel.

 Now for the testimony part: Joyce Meyer makes a simple but incredibly key point in her book "Trusting God Day by Day" for January 16th: God is all that we need. That doesn't mean that I don't have to study my ass off for the MCAT, take extra courses to boost up my GPA, get stellar references, etc. I still have to do all those things, but if I do my part, I can leave the rest up to God to take care of. I was thinking about it like this: we have free will to do whatever we want, and no matter what we choose (as long as it's coming from a good place and not an truly evil place), God will give us what we need to get it done, as long as we keep the faith that He will do so.
Having faith is one thing, keeping the faith in times of trouble is quite another.  For example, I faced a major, unexpected, unpleasant, and proloooooonged delay in my thesis work, and came very close to walking away from it all out of frustration and loosing hoping that I would overcome this problem at the end of last year. My mother, encouraged me to stick it out and trust that God would take of it.  It was so strange, becasue during that time I kept running in to people who would say, "God has a reason for all of this", "trust God", "God has plan for that it will work in your favor" and eventually, that's exactly what happened. It took a while, but everything lined up perfectly in the end.  In fact, the new situation that I am in now, is part of the reason why I'm choosing this med school route at this time in my life.
I also came across a blog last night that was a former ER nurse turned physician. There was so much of what she said that resonated with me: feeling like I've been at the starting line all these years and I'm finally ready to actually start, the highs and lows of the whole process, the fact that you never really get to that final destination until you're a full fledged attending physician and even then you'll be working to stay current and on top of things. The whole thing gave me serious pause about whether or not this was something that I really wanted to pursue...turns out the answer is yes! 

After reading her blog I thought about it a lot, thought about what Joyce Meyer wrote, thought about how this desire was planted in my heart all those years ago still hasn't gone away, and I thought to myself if God could sit me down and have a conversation with me he'd probably say something like: "you've read that blog so you have a bit of an idea about what you'd have to face.  You have free will so can choose to do whatever you want, you can take this road if you want too and I'll be there to provide for you.  But you know very well, how your faith wanes in times of trouble, so you'd really have to not give up on Me if you're going to do this.  I'll carry you through, even when it doesn't feel like I am, but you have to keep believing that, even in the darkest times, and not give up on yourself or on Me".  And that's the plan.  I know I have a lot of hurdles to face and a lot opposition to overcome, but this is what I want to do. I don't want to be on my deathbed one day regretting that I didn't at least try to see this  through.  I want to grow in my faith and in my trust of God's plan for me and this will certainly test it.  I am scared, I am nervous, I am uncertain, but I am also ready for this challenge and I am excited to share this experience with you :)

So say a prayer for me!  It's time to go!     

So what was the point?

Ok, so the entire point of doing this blog was to show how God has worked wonders in my life and always seems to come through when I let Him.  I'll be the first to admit that I feel a bit self-concious about writing a blog like this because, while my faith has always been important to me, it's not something I go out of my to broadcast to ANYONE.  In fact, I make it a point to keep my faith life to myself in all social situations, plus there's always a tonne of other things to talk about!

 However, in internet world if you don't like what you are reading you don't have to read it, you can just click on to the next web page.  Since that's the case, then I'm not shoving my faith or my testimonies down your throat.  You have the option not to read this and just move on, and this way I'm not stepping on anybody's toes.  And, if you are  looking for some inspiration because it feels like your faith has been waning, or has been non-existent for a long time, then you have the option to continue to read on so that maybe you might find some sort of inspiration from all this ramblig.  So that's why I'm choosing to blog about my faith experience in this form.