I’ve been facing a dilemma…Over the past year, the thought of me helping others for a living has been slowing but surely creeping into the front of my mind.  At first, I thought there was no doubt that God was leading me to become an elementary school teacher.  But now…I’m not so sure…or maybe He did, but now He’s wanting me to do something else?  I’m so confused.  I guess I don’t want to be wrong about hearing God.  Maybe that’s just pride?  Maybe I just don’t want to be wrong.  Period.  I have so much trouble hearing his voice over everything else in my head.  I don’t want to find out the way I chose wasn’t what He had in mind for me. I’m kind of paralyzed with indecision.  I guess I’m at a crossroads of sorts. 

I mean, I love working with kids.  It was what I looked forward to most during block.  I love helping them and seeing them grow- it’s so rewarding.  But I also think of the year and a half of lesson plans and reflective essays and teaching in front of other adults and it just fills me with dread.  I hate the tedious nature of the work that’s involved, I hate desk jobs, deadlines, suits, and politics.  And they have all taken over the education system.  I can handle getting up at 6 in the morning to go to work.  I can factor that into my schedule.  But I remember all the nights where I would be spending 2-3 hours on a single lesson plan that I would probably not be able to use again realistically.  It was such a chore.

And then there’s the realization that during my field experience I found myself more drawn to helping the children grow as individuals then as students.  That can make you second-guess your career path.  I remember over the summer last year asking God to give me peace about it if a psychology degree wasn’t for me, but no such luck.  It’s just been nagging at the back of my mind, and now it’s slowly made it’s way to being downright insistent.  Maybe I’m just waiting for the obvious, because looking back, there’s been a lot of hints.  The random peace of mail from a university that exclusively deals with psychology and psychiatry despite the fact that I’ve never expressed interest to any of my professors about the subject as a career option.  And now they send me mail pretty regularly.  There’s the conversations I’ve had with some of my friends, with weird, “they’re saying that but it doesn’t feel like they’re the ones who are saying tha…t”, pep talks telling me to go for it. 

Maybe my biggest hang up is the thought of staying in school even longer, when I’m already 23 and still with a year and a half to go.  Or maybe it’s the severe lack of job security for a person with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.  And then again it could be the bag of criticism that will be dropped on my head when my family finds out.  There’s no money in that!  You’ll be in school forever!  You’ll never graduate!  You’re just afraid of being in the real world! 

I’m sorry, are you paying for my tuition?  Whatever.  Thanks for the pep talk and all your support.

I’ve been reading this book called “The Barbarian Way” that talks about God driving people out of their minds.  That people who really follow God and talk to and listen to Him have to be off kilter.  They’re not meant to be tamed and domesticated- they’re supposed to be savages, unlike the country club that Christianity as a whole has turned into.  Being a little nuts is what allows God to reach them.  It’s difficult for people to listen to God when they’re too busy trying to listen to everyone else tell them how a good Christian is supposed to act.  The author talks about God asking everything of you, and expecting nothing less.  He talks about how we weren’t supposed to necessarily live in comfort.  We weren’t baptized in comfort, but in spirit and fire.  He talks about God wanting to make your days counts, instead of letting you have more days to count.

He’s definitely setting my brain on fire.  It’s so maddening to me to be going through this stepping-stone process.  First a science major, then ECED, and now this?  But maybe it’s in good faith.  God help me.  Maybe I need an intervention.  An angel descending with some material on Maslow or Piaget’s stages of development would be very convenient right now…Nope, nothing happened.