Despite not blogging about my new life as a Christian, the journey has continued and still does continue to be the most exciting, satisfying, testing, strengthening, humbling and enlightening (and lots more ing’s) time of my whole life. I’m discovering things about myself that I didn’t know and that is how God works with us when we ask Him into our life and thank Him for sending His only son to die for us so that we can start anew, with a clean slate. Are we going to keep that slate clean? No! Of course we’re not because we are not perfect and never will be, but we grow and learn continually.
The journey isn’t always smooth, in fact it is never without trials, but each and every trial teaches us something about ourselves, which we have to acknowledge, because of the way God brings the lesson. Fellow human beings can try to correct us and yet our natural instinct is to defend how we act, think and feel, but when we decide to put our faith in God, there is no defence of our actions, thoughts or feelings because although it is sometimes uncomfortable we know it’s right, deep down we just know.
An example of a knowing-it’s-right correction is my recent dilemma about whether I really wanted to be a nurse. Over the last year or so I have experienced a profound feeling of frustration and fearfulness while working in the role of a nurse, not all of the time, but it kept coming and going and niggling away. I couldn’t understand why because it is the one thing I have always had a passion for and I was well on my way, so why did I feel like a square peg in a round hole. I loved the learning at university and was totally absorbed in every lecture but I felt out of place at times in the role of a nurse.
I prayed for God to speak to me, tell me in a way that could leave no doubt in my mind if I was on the path He wanted me to be on and He did. It wasn’t in the way I expected and it certainly wasn’t comfortable but it taught me something valuable about myself and allowed me to let go of a chain that had held me for years, pride! I had started on this path so I had to finish, I had to get the degree to show I could. Trouble is, I was no longer doing it for the right reasons. I loved learning, thoroughly enjoyed the social side of university and didn’t want to leave the special friends I’d made, one in particular. But I no longer wanted to be a nurse!
God knew that long before I would acknowledge it, but I needed a good teacher who wouldn’t just pat me on the back and say carry on you’re doing great, but would LET me carry on until I learned something about myself and could admit it without feeling any shame. You see it isn’t as important as we think because we think in human terms and humans don’t like to be corrected by other humans, but correction by God liberates you, sets you free from the need to match- up to the things in this world and deep down you just know its right.
