Grad School--"Doing the Impossible"

Yesterday I wrote that the Holy Spirit usually keeps "nagging" us, if you will, until it hits us that He is speaking to us.  When I began teaching at the Community College, as a part-time instructor, for $700.00 a class, I could not have dreamt how my life would change.  We always tend to think that our lives will remain just as they are at the moment -- and, at that moment, I was so happy to have a small, part-time job that allowed me to be home when my kids got home from school.  Of course, I was turning the one or two classes I taught into a full-time job by attending all the faculty meetings, which I did not have to do, and by working in the learning lab as much as I could, for $7.00 an hour.

Everytime I got still in prayer, something seemed to tell me to go to Graduate School and get a Master's Degree.  I brushed off that idea as "impossible:" I had gone back to work because we needed the money, with our children beginning to enter high school.  I needed to work; as little income as I was bringing it, it was better than nothing.  How on earth could I work, take care of the home, and go to Grad. School?  I could not see how it was possible. 

But the idea kept coming back, despite my "explanations" to whatever, whoever, that it could not be done. Besides, I was very happy just doing what I was doing at the moment.  I could not envision that I would want anything else. 

Finally, after about a year of saying things like,"I'm too old to start doing what someone else wants me to do (meaning writing papers, taking tests, etc.)," I got a call from a friend who I had not spoken to in about 6 years.  We had been in a prayer group together in the 70's; this was 1984.  She had had a dream about me; in the dream, I was walking on a path around a pond.  There were paths leading away from the pond.  Everytime I got to one of the paths, I would stop and look down it, shake my head and say "No," and then stay on the path I was on, circling the pond yet one more time. 

Her dream shook me to the core.  I realized then that God was telling me to go to Grad School, and I was telling Him it couldn't be done.  Years later I was to hear Fr. Harold Cohen say, "What God orders, He pays for," but at the time, I could not figure out how we were going to pay for my son's Catholic high school tuition, my college tuition, and the girls' private school tuition unless I was working.

With a great deal of trembling, I called the Grad School ENglish Dept. at UNO and spoke to the head of the department on a Friday afternoon.  He told me he would put some information in the mail for me.  On Monday, I drove to UNO and tried to register, but after talking to the registrar and asking about a hundred questions, I just could not do it; I could not write the check.  I drove home crying and telling God that I knew He wanted me to go to Grad School, but I thought it would kill me trying to cover all the bases.  I promised to go back the next day.  When I got home, the promised packet of information was waiting for me --- and, call me naive or ignorant, but I had never heard about the Graduate Assistantships offered by Graduate Schools.  Surprisingly (to me), they would pay for your tuition, your books, and provide a small living allowance too.  The allowance was less than I was making as an adjunct teacher, but not much less.

Again, I sat down and cried!  It wasn't Impossible, as I thought!  God had resources that I knew nothing about!  I just had to follow His instructions.  I called the head of the ENglish Department to thank him for sending the material so quickly and to ask whether there were any assistantships still available.  He told me that there was one opening if I could get everything submitted quickly -- but he also told me that he had not spoken to me Friday afternoon, that he had not been in the office that afternoon, and that he had not sent me any materials that afternoon.  Now I was really laughing and crying at the same time!

Now convinced that God was really directing the operation, and that His plan was to cover the bases so that I would not die in the process, I confidently sent in all my information -- and of course, got the last assistantship being offered. 

God does not always tell us HOW He's going to direct the operation when He directs us to go in a certain direction, but if He is directing us, we can be sure that He's got all the angles figured out ahead of time.  One of my favorite scriptures is from Zachariah:  Not by might, not by strength, but by My Spirit, says the LOrd of Hosts.  Our thoughts are so limited by our own resources of time, ability, and wealth, but God's thoughts are so far beyond ours that all we can do is trust Him and do whatever He tells us to do.