Only 15 More Weeks!

I completed my last final exam last night for summer semester (yep, that's right, Friday night - torturous isn't it). Anyway, following the 3 hour ordeal I was able to send off the exam to my professor and raise my arms in triumphant Rocky-like fashion. The most exciting part when I was able to tell my 2 1/2 year old son, Alex, that his Daddy didn't have to go to "class" anymore for at least 3 weeks. I think he might have been more excited than I was. It was so heartbreaking to have to say goodbye every Monday and Tuesday night and have him tell me "Daddy no go class." But now, there is only 1 more semester, a mere 15 weeks, that stand between me and graduate degrees. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it looks bright and pretty!

It seems like only yesterday Shiree and I were packing up with our then 7month old Alex and moving to Salt Lake City with the idea that we were going to spend 3 years here while I went to school. I didn't have a job and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my two masters degrees. But through a set of amazing experiences ("tender mercies of the Lord" in the truest sense of the word) it has been almost 2 years later and even though I still don't have a job (at least a paid one - my internship at the VA is unpaid), I have a clear direction of where I want to be in a year and a pretty good idea what I want my career path to look like. The irony is that when we moved here, we did it mostly on faith because I had no idea what possibilities there were for me with an MSW and an MPA. That combination seemed almost illogical at the time. But now that we are getting ready to launch into the "real world" or post-education life, I can look back now and see the path that God has led us through has been the one that fits perfectly into my life, my wants, my desires, my abilities, and my strengths. He has led me up to this point because of my faith and now I am telling Him that it's my turn to take over. The irony is that I was so willing to let Him lead me when we moved here, and now that I have become "learned" (2Ne 9:28-29) I am wanting to lead myself. In reality, I have learned nothing. If I cannot learn to trust in God now that I have my accelades and degrees moreso than before I had them, then my two degrees mean nothing. I think the difference before was that I had no idea what I was going to do, but now I have some idea what I want to do. I am letting my wants get in the way of God's will and that's where the rubber meets the road. My "real" education begins now that this test is upon me. I just hope that I can do better on this test than I did on my last final exam.