What a Week

What a Week

            I have been thinking and praying over what I was going to write for the last couple days. The week started off really good as it always has. I had the nervousness and anticipation on my application to seminary school and the concern about my wife and our homeschooling adventure.

            Well as you read this week, come Wednesday I had initially heard back from the school telling me that I had not known my pastor long enough for his reference to be taken into account for my admission. I talked to Pastor Greg and he gave a call to the admissions board at the school where he was notified that they would contact me with further instructions. Well those further instructions were that I had not been a Christian for at least a year therefore I did not meet the admission criteria. That really crushed my hopes for a brief time and I had actually thought about writing out this long essay to the school board trying to fight my case, but it was going to be an argumentative type essay. My wife reminded me that my actions would have been of the FLESH and not from the heart and not glorifying to GOD. To strengthen this my pastor had sent me a message that helped to reinforce this standpoint, so I held off on sending the essay. Boy am I glad I did, instead of writing an essay I did some research on the internet and found another College that will accept me with the same curriculum that I was looking at with Moody. So right now I am just waiting on a response from their admissions board, but I have faith that this will completely work out.

            Another one of our issues this week was the lack of resources for the path that we had chosen to home school our children. It was quickly brought to our attention that having only one computer in the house was just not going to work, our daughter needs constant supervision while she is doing the work on the computer. I started to look at computers on line and was ready to put another bill on the table when my wife notified me that our biggest supporter had come through again. We were given a gift of love from my mother-in-law in the form of a brand new computer, which will make the whole prospect of homeschooling much easier on my wife and myself. This just once again proves that if you put everything on the alter and let your decisions be guided by God everything will work out. For myself, I find that I am doing this more often, there is hardly a decision that I make where I don’t pray on it long and hard first. Prayer is such an easy thing to do that many people just don’t make time for, this I can’t understand. Thank you for reading, and God Bless.

G.E.D.D.

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Challenges

Challenges, Roadblocks, and Faith

          Well today was a challenging day for my whole family which included a few roadblocks requiring us to have trust in our faith to make sure that everything turns out ok.

          To start off today was the first day of school for my kids whom we are homeschooling this year. This is not something that is just new to my wife, but also new to myself and my children as well. What makes this even worse is that we did not really receive a timeline from the home school people telling us the best way to do it so my poor wife is kind of winging the whole thing. In addition our first road block surfaced when we realized that my daughter was going to need almost constant instruction on the computer, of which we only have one in the house, and that we were going to have to find a way to get a second computer into the house to help her out. I have complete faith and trust that my wife is going to get this straightened out and fall into a rhythm that the kids will be able to flow with. The kids on the other hand, are having a hard time distinguishing between mom the teacher and mom the parent. This is something that we as a family will have to work at, I will be off my night shifts next week and will be able to help out a little more to relieve my wife of some of the stress.

          Roadblock two came once I woke up this afternoon. I knew while applying for seminary that it already wasn’t going to be an easy path to follow, but I have ran into an obstacle right off the bat. Even though my pastor wrote a great reference for me it was addressed by the admissions board today that I have to know my pastor for at least a year for the reference to be accepted. For me this was extremely disheartening and reflected in the way that I talked to my wife. She was trying to tell me about her troubles for the day and I was very abrupt with her and made her feel bad. I should not project the way that I am feeling on to my family. This is just something that I want to do so bad, and I was just trying to rack my brain and figure out who I could contact for the Pastoral reference letter. This is something that I am still trying to figure out now, but I have come to the realization that this is just another test for me to pass, it is also a avenue to bring back relationships that I have let fall to the side due to lack of contact. I now have the chance to track down my old Chaplain that I served in Iraq with, it might prove to be impossible to contact him, but I will give it my best attempt. I am also going to send an email to the admissions board explaining that there is only one other person of the clergy that I have known other that Pastor Gregg and that due to military moves you tend to not keep in contact. I would hate to have this be the reason I am not admitted into school. I will keep my faith strong though and pray for guidance. Thank you for reading and God Bless.

G.E.D.D

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Fear

Fear is Natural

          To start of my week I have noticed that I am a little apprehensive, nervous, and fearful and I believe I know why. I think I know why I am apprehensive and nervous, I should be hearing from the school on whether or not my application was approved for seminary school. I mean when you want something this bad and its all you can think about, you will be nervous when waiting for the answer.

          What I have been thinking about is why I am scared. I know what fear is, see I have been scared plenty in my life. Through my tours in the military to Iraq I felt fear on an almost daily basis. There was an unwritten rule in Iraq, it was stupid and presumptuous to not have fear in your heart when going out on patrol in a war environment and it could get you killed. What I am unable to figure out is why I am scared about the decision from the school. I know that whatever the school says is meant to be because it is what God wants for me; so why am I scared of the decision?

          I have been thinking about this a lot today and I think I might have finally figured it out. I am not scared of being denied for the school, I think I am scared that I will be admitted by the school. Hear me out now, I think the fear is coming from being accepted and not being good enough. I mean to fail in something this big and not glorify God is a lot to take on. I know that I will put my best foot forward per say, but what if that is not enough? I know that doubts like this are normal and to be expected, but I still hate having them. I know what I have in my heart to do and what I can do; I know that He knows what I can do because He is with me always. I just can’t stop thinking about not pleasing Him and letting Him down. I will just have to put these thoughts to the back of my head and not worrying about this anymore. I have had this put on my heart and will fulfill His wishes 150%. Thank you for reading and God Bless.

G.E.D.D.

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