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All throughout my life, I have had a strong feeling that everyone has a place and a job to do– In other words, a plan. It is a deep conviction that I really can’t explain where it came from. It wasn’t instilled in me by my parents or anyone in particular that I can name. However, just as sure as I know my name, I’m convinced that each of us was created for a purpose.
All throughout my life, I have always be drawn to the verse in the bible that says, “For I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you, and to give you hope and a future.” For years, I thought I knew that purpose. My husband was an ordained deacon, we sang in a gospel group, and I taught classes in church, and etc. You name it, and we were helpers of it. I just felt that my part was to be a good wife, good mother, and to help train and encourage others.
Then one day after twenty -two years of marriage, I was asked to sit down at the kitchen table. I will never forget pulling up that chair. The moment I sat down, my life changed and it has never been the same. “Glenda, you’re a good woman with a good heart, but I just don’t love you anymore.” These are the words that started my life down a different path.
My life changed, and the plan changed. I began to question was there really a plan at all. If so, surely this was not it! This couldn’t be all that life had for me. I’m sharing this story with you because I hope to build you a picture that there is a plan for your life. To me personally, there isn’t anything any sadder than to think that we’re just here and that everything happens by chance with no rhythm or reason, that we’re just a drifter.
After my marriage ended, of which I just knew would be saved, I began to change. I questioned things that I had never questioned before, and I feared being alone, because I had never been alone. After several months of this, I was lying on the bed one day trying to decide if I was brave enough to go to a ladies conference on my own. I had no one to go with me, I would know no one there, and I had never driven in that city, and I was terrified of going. At the same time, I was terrified of not going. I just really felt that it was something that I needed to do.
I was lying there trying to decide and several scriptures kept running through my mind. I couldn’t sort one of them out. It was about a man on a roof top. I kept trying to put the story together in my mind and I couldn’t. I called my former pastor and asked him if he knew of a story in the bible about a man on a roof top, and just on the spur of the moment he couldn’t think of it. Well needless to say, I was bound and determined to find it, because it just kept coming to my mind. I got my bible down and low and behold there it was. Peter and Cornelius– now I was really confused, of all the things that I needed to hear why was it about Peter and Cornelius?
This was the night prior to the conference and I decided that I was going. I got up early the next morning, threw everything in a bag and off I went. I was not registered, had no idea of how to get there, and I knew that there would not be one single person that I would know. I didn’t even know if the registration would be full, or if I could still get in.
To make a long story as short as I can, I arrived about 15 minutes late and slipped in the back of the room. Though it was a ladies conference, a man made the introduction to formerly welcome everyone. I will never forget what he said when he walked up. He began to welcome us and then soon started sharing his heart on how we all have a plan and a purpose. He said, “Think about Peter and Cornelius.” My heart was about to beat out of my chest. He explained that God showed Peter that his love was not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well. Peter was to let Cornelius know that nothing God had cleansed was to be considered unclean. God used Peter and his teaching to show that love, redemption and forgiveness was for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or former sins. What God cleanses is clean. I began to light up, I could see how God is no respect of persons and He does have something for all of us to do. God had just taken the time to give me a little gift of hope that I needed, but it didn’t stop there.
Now this is how God works, the main speaker of that conference was Susan, and she walked up to me that day, and asked if I had a room. I explained that I did not, and she offered for me to stay with her. I think back on it now and I still can’t believe that I was willing to stay with a complete stranger. Normally you couldn’t pay me to stay with someone that I had never laid eyes on before, but I did. You talk about a weekend full of feeling God’s presence and his love and being shown that he indeed had a purpose for me. There is just not enough words to explain it, nor time to tell it. It didn’t matter that a husband of 22 years had left, nor did anything matter. I was born into the world with a purpose and a plan, and the only thing that would keep me from it, would be my unwillingness to do it.
I know some of you may be thinking Peter and Cornelius that’s way back there, and you’re right, so let’s move forward. Think aobut Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Graham Bell, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Ford. Think about how our lives are different because they were persistent and didn’t give up. These changes did not come over night, they had to be PERSISTENT!
Let’s take a look at Florence Nightingale who established the first organized program for training nurses. Think about it, because of her and what she was passionate about, it trickled down and now it has impacted my life. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, how many lives do you think she has had a part in reaching? Mary Mahoney, the first professionally trained African American Nurse. Abraham Lincoln started the path for her, Florence Nightingale picked up the torch, and then Mary Mahoney was persistent, until she reached her goal. Do you see how the actions of one person affect what happens with another? This includes actions we do or don’t do. What if all the people above were just not into all the hard work that it required? What if persistence just wasn’t there thing? What would our lives be like today?
Now let’s move in a little closer. Look at Dr. Jones who is working hard to get our LPN program accredited. I realize that people can still work without it, but who is to say that one day you can’t. It is for certain, that carrying the title of accreditation means that to anyone applying for a job in a different state where the hiring staff is not familiar with the NACC nursing program, that the applying LPN will have a better shot of getting the job, because it means that you’re graduating from a facility that has proven itself as meeting all the requirements for training the best. I would want to be considered as one of the best, wouldn’t you?
Alright you’re thinking well Dr. Jones has a Doctorate’s degree. I can’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that. Let’s look at Judith who works at NACC. Her job is to work with the computer system. If you have any problems with blackboard and so on, she is the person to contact. Yet the life that she has lived, and the person that she is, is what helped me to realize that I wasn’t too old for the nursing program. You can ask Judith; years ago she never thought that she would be working in a school system being able to impact so many lives. Her job ended and she was faced with the decision of what to do as she stood at a fork in the road. Now, here she is, she has her masters if I’m not mistaken, and she’s still climbing. If I make it, she will be part of my success. As will be Dr. Mildred Montag, who established the first associate degree nursing program. I don’t know that I would have been brave enough to enroll at the beginning in a four year program, but because I had the option of a two year program, I enrolled. Now that I have listened to all these instructors, I would love to get my masters. I would love to teach one day, but due to my age, I’m going to have to move fast. That’s why I stay on you younger ones, I want you to reach the top, and when you get there, wave at me and smile, and I will know in my heart that I had a small part of getting you there.
Ms Gentry shared this quote by Josh Billings: Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists of its ability to stick with one thing until it gets there. I want to encourage you NOT to give up. If you want to be a part of nursing, ask yourself, is it the actual material that is too hard for you that you’re not making good grades, or could it be that you’re not sticking with the goal until you get there. You’re not being persistent in your studies and in your time. I’m telling you now, if you want it, then you can do it! But, you have to be determined to do it. You can’t just now be taking the shrink wrap off of your books. Gosh what are you thinking? One day, you are going to hold someone’s life in your hand. I’m asking you, please read the book before you take care of someone that I love. I take that back, you won’t hold someone’s live in your hand, because you won’t make it, if you’re not studying. Each time that you do not study, that you don’t put forth the effort that you know you should, you are taking actions that are going to send you down a different path other than nursing. I hope you have an idea of what you want it to be.
I know that this was a long post, but I got so excited as the big picture began to unfold before my eyes of how each one of us, what we do and what we say with our lives, will always have an effect on the life of someone else, and sometimes many.
I don’t know about you, but regardless of what you believe about God, whoever you consider your maker to be, when we stand before our maker I don’t want to have missed one thing that He had for me. I don’t want to be shown a picture of what I could have done, but I want to hear well done!
I am so excited about what lies ahead for all of us, here’s to all of us being like the postage stamp.
Licked and stuck tight: Persistent to the end,
Glenda
