First Step

   I leave for Baja, Mexico in 25 days...........whoa, what?? Yeah, it just hit me that I leave for the biggest trip I have ever taken thus far in my life in less than a month. AND it is 100% paid for! Woohoo!!! The amount of support that I have received throughout fundraising for this trip has completely overwhelmed me. I trusted that God would provide, but actually seeing and knowing that it's there is still overwhelming. Sometimes I think we put God in this box, saying "God, I'm trusting you to *insert relevant prayer here*, but if you don't, that's okay. Whatever." It's like we don't want to step on God's toes by dreaming and praying the biggest, craziest prayers we can come up with. Why is that?? Why are we so afraid to pray our biggest prayers and dream our biggest dreams? Y'all, I'm going to be completely honest for a minute: I'm scared to go back to school in January. Very scared. It scares me to my very core to think about just having a repeat of last time. But I want this. I want to be a nurse more than anything. I want to save peoples' lives. I want to be part of amazing miracles that take place. I want to be a nurse practitioner and travel to other countries providing care that may otherwise not be available. I'm even going to get real crazy and say that I want to discover a cure for a currently incurable disease. Go ahead, take a moment and let what I just said sink in. I want to go above and beyond what seems possible. Am I nervous? Uh, well yeah. Can I see past this nursing math test I'm currently studying? Not really. When I had the opportunity to go to the Catalyst Conference in Georgia last year, one of the speakers said something that really resonated with me. It went something like, "God usually won't show you steps 3 and 4 until you take steps 1 and 2." God is smart enough not to show me the big picture. He knows that I would get incredibly overwhelmed and scared and never take that first step. Whenever I work with patients who just had hip or knee surgery, one of the biggest things the doctor would want us to focus on would be taking a few steps at a time. Can you guess which step was the hardest for the patient to take? Yeah, the very first one. They didn't know if they'd be able to walk at all. They didn't know if they would just end up in a crumpled mess on the floor. Plus, the pain after surgery is usually pretty intense, but yet, the reward they know they'll receive from having faith and taking that first step usually gives them the strength to just reach out and do it. Sure, it may be slow and they may be gripping the walker until their knuckles turn white, but before you know it, they're on the other side of the room with the biggest grin on the face, proud of their accomplishment. That's going to be me come next May. If you happen to come to UM's graduation, keep an eye out for me. I'll be the one with the bedazzled mortarboard and mile-wide smile. I'll be celebrating, not only because I'll be done with school (praise the Lord!!!) but also because I know I didn't give up. I didn't let what the enemy intended to be negative get me down. I'll be that much closer to my biggest, craziest dreams. And I can't wait =)