tucked away...

before i was a stay at home mom, i was an elementary school teacher. i don't talk about it much because it was for such a short season in my life. i moved down south from pa, leaving my family behind, for a teaching position in an inner city public school. i taught for two years. i really didn't enjoy it too much. it was a tough school and i didn't enjoy it at all.

then i had our first son, and didn't return for my third year. i did teach at a private preschool for about 6 months when josh was a baby. so, i guess you can say that i am a teacher by trade.

i have been asked a dozen times or more if i will return to teaching when all of my kids are in school. i guess that is what stay at home moms do once their kids go to school, they go back to work. i have pretty much always answered "no way, not a chance, i will not teach at a school again."

and this is why...

ever since having our children, God has placed an undeniable passion in my heart for pregnant moms, moms with new babies and babies. i have been able to direct this passion into a long term goal i have set for myself.

one day i am going to be a nurse midwife.

i have held it tight in my heart for a long time.

when my second child was a baby, i applied to nursing school and i got accepted. with some mentoring from a nurse and an older mom, i decided the timing wasn't right to start school. so i tucked the dream away. it wasn't time to make it a reality.

then a few years later, the timing was right, so i applied and got accepted again. two years ago to this date i was finishing up my first semester in an excellent nursing program at a nearby university. i loved being in school. i took one semester of classes, finishing with a 4.0 and was planning to return in the fall. i would have had a full clinical schedule. i was so excited, until it didn't work out.

schedule,
childcare,
classes,
none of it worked out.

for some reason, i was to put it on hold again. so i withdrew from the program. i was so sad, but i knew it was the right thing to do at the time.

i put my dream on hold for the second time, tucking it away in my heart again, only this time i had made a step closer than the first time.

i still hold that dream tight in my heart, knowing one day, if it is still God's plan for me, i will make it a reality. i will go back and finish my degree and become a labor and delivery nurse, then work towards a nurse midwife certificate.

i have no idea when or how i will fulfill my dream, i just know i will, one day. i don't know when or how or what it looks like but until then it is tucked away in my heart, waiting for God to show me how and when to make it a reality.


For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11