Pray for My Inner Peace

[OnlySunshine]

Things have been pretty crazy this week.  Last week, I found out I was accepted to the school I applied to study Zoology so I got right on registering for orientation and getting all my immunization records together to clear the holds so I could register for classes.  Since the school is 2 hours away from my hometown, housing is a necessity and, for what ever reason, I found out this week that no housing is available on-campus and the housing affiliates off-campus are full, as well.  Of course, the housing that was available was in a large metro area that is about an hour away from the school and I did not want to commute back and forth.  It's too expensive, also.  Because of this and the fact that I was really confused about what to do, I held off telling my mom because I was trying to see if there was anything else available.  I was coming up empty.

On another note, I met with a friend from Church yesterday who is a licensed clinical social worker.  She works as a Christian counselor (she is Catholic but she works with all Christians) and loves her job.  Our personalities are very similar and we started talking about my job search and how I was not sure if the Zoology degree was the right move because I'm starting from scratch, literally, and it will take so much time and money.  I have a tendency to overthink things so I thought it was just my normal doubt creeping in.  However, since finding out that housing is not available, it made me realize that, again, things happen for a reason.  I haven't seen this friend a really long time and we just happened to meet the week that I was having doubts about what my career should be.  My grandmother, who is always supportive, expressed pretty big doubts herself about how I would pay for things without going into debt and how long it would take to complete school before I was doing something I love.  I felt, personally, like I was going into it blindly.  It's not like me to do something so unorthodox and I think that's what made me hesitate - with good reason.

Anyway, I talked for a good hour with my friend about her job and just realized that I need to pursue something that is more in tune with what I've done in the past, which is health care, and something that won't take so long to complete before I can start working in that career.  Let's be honest, I am about to be 35 in July and I'm not in a position to make spur-of-the-moment decisions.  For whatever reason, I became impulsive and the brakes were put on me.  My friend gave me a contact of hers that works at the school she attended for her MSW and I also found more information online about the program.  It will require me to take the GRE test (ugh!) but I really think the Master's program is the way to go.  My friend reminded me how versatile social work is - you can work in several different settings.

I need prayers please.  I am glad that I met with this friend.  I was considering being a counselor when I was still at my last job because my supervisor and a few other co-workers said I had the personality to work in social work.  I'm very empathetic and resourceful.  I also love animals.  I told my friend that I was interested in acquiring and training a Golden Retriever as a therapy dog and she reminded me that equine therapy helps so much, too.  I have loved horses ever since I was 3 years old, so I'd love doing that.