Truly Blessed!

I know it has been awhile, but I don't have easy access to the internet yet, so it has been hard to update or even check my e-mails. But now, however, I have a story to tell....

Once upon a time there was a girl from Indiana who more than anything else wanted to move away and start her "own" life. She visited a college in MI, felt the Lord calling her to it, and went. Over the next four years she learned some tough life lessons, met people from all walks of life, managed to take out tuition loans the size of Texas, find new friends (and an incredible boyfriend!), and really discover a purpose from God in her life. Finally, one day it was all over. That fateful day she walked the plank and received a diploma in exchange for all her hard work and mighty loans. Before she could use it, however, she had to take and pass the dreaded EXAM, a piece of work that really has less to do with how much you know, and more to do with how lucky you are at taking a one-time multiple choice computer exam. But God blessed her in this, and next came 6 weeks of applying to all sorts of jobs, making follow-ups, going to interviews, etc... She moved from Indiana to Grand Rapids, Michigan on faith, no job. Then, on Thursday, September 7, 2006 her prayers were answered and she received the very job she was hoping for, to work as an RN at Spectrum Health's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Grand Rapids, MI. This girl looked back on her life and said, "God has richly blessed me!"


Okay, now, that is the fairy tale side of things. But the life of someone else is rarely what it seems to be. If I have learned nothing else through my four years of college it is this:

When bad things happen.....

-I'm alone and sick in a strange city where the doctors can't find what's wrong with me, where I have to get full-body x-rays by myself, and my dad has to drive up for my MRI
-I get C's and D's on my freshman year transcript and consider dropping out of college (I think God was trying to tell me something because after I switched from my killer biochemistry to nursing I did much better)
-I'm told my freshman year grades are too poor to get me into the nursing program
-a best friend is diagnosed with bone cancer
-my mother is diagnosed with breast cancer
-my grandmother dies of lung cancer
-I can't find a job

...When bad things happen......remember that God is FAITHFUL! ALL THE TIME! God has been so good to me! He is showing me what it means to live a Righteous life, to be faithful in the little things so I can be entrusted with the big. Every time I was depressed, homesick, lonely, feeling worthless and unloved, hopeless, then God pulled me through it and brought me into a place where I can live for Him, and rely only on Him. He is my Provider and He is FAITHFUL! I would not be anywhere near the place I am in my life were it not for my Lord and His intervention! I boast in the Lord and what He alone has done!

So be encouraged, God is a BIG God. He is Big enough to give you dreams and make them happen...even when you are told (by others or your own self) that it is impossible, I am proof that God is Big enough!!!