I completed my virtual classroom with my university counselor, Simon, and finished my first online assignment and bio. Day one of going back to school as a 43 year old- done.
I listened to a podcast while doing dishes today (yes, we wash our dishes by hand) where the podcasters speculated about how a day a work in their individual careers would be different if it was 1985. I don't know that I wish 1985 back, but I do feel more comfortable with a manual, real-paper-book, life than I do with the online, technology driven life. Getting online with my school counselor to do a virtual tour of my "classroom" had me feeling like... a 40 something year old college student. I'm excited to learn, but I admit I'm intimidated by the technology. Next: Learn Powerpoint.
Got a voicemail from an FFA student in Globe, AZ who asked her FFA group could market my soap for a agri-business marketing project. I've also had several people email, text and message me asking what soap I have available. I haven't made a batch of soap in several months. I want to make soap. I like it that people benefit from and enjoy my soap. But I feel like making soap and selling soap right now is distraction from the direction I'm going right now, which is pursuing a higher degree in nursing.
Going back to school, having people inquiring about my soap, having people at work encouraging me to promote into a leadership position, having two sons in the throes of puberty, having a troubled marriage (which is currently better than it has ever been), having a church family (finally!) that I've committed to investing myself in... all of these have me seeking God for what it looks like for me to run the race set before me, eyes fixed on Jesus.
The school, soap and work could drop off the planet for me right now. They're not eternally important. But the sons, and the husband and the people I'm getting know and serve at church, they are. When I think about my "race"- the life God has set before me to run by faith, I don't think about school or soap or work very much (although I do think about my witness as a Christian in those arenas of my life). What I do think about is the people I live with everyday and the people throughout history and geographically who will be my family eternally. The desire for those to be one group is a burden I take to the only One who can transfer anyone from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his Son.
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will. - 2 Timothy 2:24-26
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