Approaching finals

Well it's Friday! I'm about to head to my last class of the semester (which unfortunately is a test!) and then I will have 5 finals next week before I will return home to STL for the summer. I am so ready for a break! Right now my mind feels like it's going to explode from everything I have to complete! This weekend will probably not be as fun as I would envision my last weekend of the semester to be. I just hope I make it through next Thursday alive and with decent grades. Sorry this is so short, but I just wanted to check in and ask for prayer as I go through my finals. I have one everyday and then 2 on Thursday, my last day. I also have much packing up to do so hopefully I can get all of this stuff done without too much stress!

Peace out!

A Definite WOW Moment

Have you ever been overwhelmed with the power of God? Well I had a moment like this yesterday as I was driving back to school from home. There was some flooding in TN, so I waited until Monday morning to let some of the roads clear and also so I would not have to drive in the dark. About an hour and a half into my drive, I drew my attention back to the uneasy, something is wrong feeling dwelling in my stomach the last few days. After praying to God about it heavily, I decided to call my mom to talk about what I was thinking about. Basically the whole nursing thing being super complicated in my life was a big factor that was pressing on me and I knew God was trying to speak to me, but I did not understand what was going on. Seriously, I was so flustered about this feeling that I ended up pulling over in Cape Girardeau and walked around Target while I spoke to my mom (and eventually my dad) for an hour about what I should do about nursing and whether it was still my true calling from God. This struggle has been so emotionally consuming! I just wanted some confirmation that what I was doing was the right path for me. Well, I brainstormed other options of what I could major in because basically as long as I found something I could serve people and do missions with, I was open to learning more about. My original "Plan B" for if I didn't get into nursing school was to do TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language), but that didn't feel right to me either. After winding down a little, I got back on the road and started listening to my new Casting Crowns album and began praying that God would reveal to me whatever He was trying to get through and that I would understand and take it willingly. At one point of a song called "At Your Feet", I had just finished praying out loud seeking any type of answer, and the song lyrics said this; " At your feet I lay my future down, all of my dreams I give to you and I find peace". At this moment, I felt like a big weight had been lifted from my shoulders and the feeling in my stomach went away. I felt as though I could breathe again. Again, the realization that Jesus is all I will ever need was exactly what He continued to show me. Like in the song, there is nowhere else I want to be than at the feet of Jesus. One of the major obstacles keeping me from pursuing another major was mean old Satan trying to get me to worry about what others would think if I changed my major after four years of telling them nursing is what I was going to do with my life. Well, I decided that it was time to stop worrying about what others think and just focus on what God thinks and what I feel is best suited for myself. When I got back to campus, I pulled up the school's website and ended up on the communication arts website. I had told my mom earlier that I thought maybe something in communications might be a better fit for me but had no idea how it would work out with me wanting to do missions. Ironically, or maybe it was just God, the first thing I read about was journalism. I found that the director of journalism had lived in other countries and did and still does a lot of mission work. Seriously, I thought I was about to burst from the feeling of excitement. So my longer story shortened, I ended up meeting with this professor earlier today, and I ended up changing my major to journalism with a photojournalism minor. I am so psyched about all the classes I get to take this fall!

My parents tell me that writing in this blog has been encouraging to others and I finally started to consider that maybe me writing on this is more of a gift from God than I thought. Up until this point I thought writing was just a fun way to get what is on my mind out into words and what God's doing in my life so if anyone read my blogs, then that's great but I'm definitely not writing to draw attention to myself. After receiving the suggestion from my mom, I showed my last blog entry to the professor (who is now my new advisor) and was relieved that he didn't have anything negative to say about it and ended up showing me the articles written by students in the magazine Commission he is an editor for. God also somehow revealed a memory from 5th grade to me of how my writing made a difference. I wrote a paper for an assignment I believe was about a wish or dream of ours. I had just gone to the Philippines the summer before and saw the poverty and what my family and our team did to serve the people. My paper was about how I wanted to help the people who did not have anything in the Philippines by helping provide for them somehow. This gave my teacher the idea that we could do a project and have the whole 5th grade collect items to send to the Philippines. So even at the age of 10, God used my writing to help others and spread awareness of the poverty I witnessed. Advocating for poverty and doing missions is what I want to do with journalism and I pray that I will be able to use these abilities to further the kingdom as well. I can honestly say at the very least of this new experience is that I believe God is pointing me in this very new direction with a purpose. Even though I was and still am a little wary of this big change, I feel that this is truly something I am passionate about and know that God will use journalism through me in ways I don't even know He has in store for me yet. Praying Jeremiah 29:11 works! I cannot wait!!! Keep me in your prayers as I continue this strange and new (but exciting) journey that God has allowed me to envision. Thanks for reading.

In Christ.