When I graduated high school I was actually accepted into 3 colleges! I did not have a good GPA, however, I applied, hoping to be accepted into just one college, to about a dozen different schools! Seriously?! Why would they want someone that could hardly pass their high school classes to come to their school and drop their average school ratings for GPA's. Well, I counted that as Blessing #1.
I then had a hard decision to make: what school do I go to? Here I have acceptance letters to Ferris State University (4 hours from home, could live with grandparents while going to school, but then pay for gas back and forth a half hour each way, or could stay in dorms; which I was scared to do), Liberty University (Lynchberg, VA; a couple days drive, near the ocean :), have to live in dorms :P, and don't know anyone there), or Northland Baptist Bible College (5 hours from home, others from church attend there, could possible join an extension group towards home, live in dorms). Well to make the decision a little easier I weeded out a few things. One, I have home sickness really easy, even though I would so LOVE to go to Virginia, it would be 9 months again, before I would be able to see my parents (wouldn't have money to travel during holidays). Two, I really wanted a Bible college, but yet wanted to get my nursing in. Liberty had both available, but was more liberal than what I was looking for at the time. Ferris had only the nursing, and Northland had only the Bible. Three, there was some financial needs in attending college anywhere. My dad worked a good job, but my parents were in severe debt to many places, so I didn't qualify for Financial Aide, and I was needing to come up with my own money for college. In doing this I ended up choosing Northland. Why? Well, Liberty was way too far to go, not knowing if I was even going to be able to stay for a semester, let alone a year. So I wasn't going to chance the distance and the money on that. I knew that I would have others to carpool with if I went to Northland, and our church always helped out the teens, when they got into a financial bind with that school. The youth group would do some kind of fundraiser, usually being cleaning up the highway of pop cans and beer bottles and cans for the deposit. Here in Michigan, it is 10 cents to return those things! You would be amazed at how much you can get. So off to Northland I go.
I ended up only saving enough money for half of a semester. The church did not help me to finish out the semester, not sure why, but they said they were NOT going to help me out. What did I ever do, that made them do that to me I don't know. They have helped out many more since then. I am the only one to this day, that had asked for help and didn't get it. But that is okay. Good things happened, and I see it as God's way of getting me to those things. In that semester though, I met some people, who I call friends, and communicate with still, on and off. Christian friends too! I also met my husband. I joke around, but truly believe that God allowed me to attend there just to meet my future husband. "He was an expensive find". LOL We have been together ever since. Blessings #2 and 3, my husband, and a more knowledgable background of the Bible.
After I returned home from college mid-March, I was offered a nanny job within a month of being back. This job would be tough, as this child was kicked out of day cares, they lost sitters after a time or maybe two, if they got lucky. This child had just turned 2! I mean seriously, how bad could this child be? That child changed my life. I still say that he is my first child, non-biological, but my first. I was with him until his 3rd birthday, which we celebrated by his parents taking us all to Disney World in Florida. That boy met and visited with me to go see my now DH, and I took that kid to run all my errands that I had to do, and just plain spoiled him rotten. His parents trusted his life in my hands. I was 19 and raising a little boy. I potty trained him, taught him manners, and memorized with him "The Lion King". I definitely had a introduction of what it would be like to have my own child. I was with him like 12 hours a day. I would say this was my Blessing #4, a heads up on parenting. I mean if I could handle him, then I could handle anyone, right? He was even there when my DH had proposed to me. :) What a special day that was.
Then our wedding. It was a small wedding in a big church. It was my church though. He ended up travelling 5 hours to our wedding, the day of. :) We got married on a Monday night, at 7 p.m. Why did we pick that? Well a long story short, I had a job, that I worked hard to get, starting on that Wednesday. He wasn't being given more than a couple days off himself for the wedding, as he was working for a temp agency at the time. So we would marry Monday night, travel to our temporary home (with his aunt) on Tuesday (just take our time travelling the 5 hours, do a little sightseeing) but not take too long, as we wanted to open our wedding gifts that night too, all this just so we could both be to work on Wednesday morning. I headed off to work, and got there, and no one knew who I was, who the manager was that wrote and signed my acceptance letter for the job, but yet acknowledged that the letter head it was written on was indeed their company and their letter head. Hmmmmm . . . . .That was very interesting. Not long after, maybe 4 months later, that specific building shut its doors. WOW! This was so weird! But through this my husband ended up getting a full time job, and I found out I was pregnant and we were in our first apartment, of our own! Blessings #5,6, and 7! [I am not counting my blessings to count them, but to point out where those blessings were, or where I considered them to be a blessing.]
Things start to fast forward a little more for a few years. So we ended up having 4 children (#8, 9, 10, and 11). We had a son, 2 daughters, and another son. First two were 15 months apart (I did not like that, nor want them that close, or even want that pregnancy; but I did not terminate it! I kept hold of that precious bundle of joy that God entrusted into my care, birthed that baby girl, and am raising her into a beautiful young lady.), the two girls at 2 1/2 years apart, and the last two are 6 days shy of exactly 2 years apart. So all a decent time apart, and time to spend with each of them a little more.
By this point in time, our marriage was not going well. What?! I know, I know, I labeled this Blessings, so why am I telling you about this? You will see. It matters and I feel it is very important to tell others about it. NO, we are not perfect, and this will show why, but why we are still together will be proved in my next post. :D
I will post on this and more in my next post.
Yep those are those 4 children I was telling you about. :)
