College Fall '12

About six months ago I dropped out of school in order to obey the God I love and serve.

It was the scariest ordeal of my entire 21 years. I was vulnerable. I was dependent solely upon Jesus. I had little money and no job.

Today I have had four jobs. I am still at one and will continue until August.

In August I will return to school.
I know its crazy and doesn't make much sense, but then again what of God DOES make sense to us?

Around the beginning of January I started feeling a pull to go back to school. I was reluctant at first to recognize it as God because hadn't He just told me to drop out? Then I started trying to listen to His voice through the people around me. My parents concerned for my future, supported me but told me school would be beneficial. My sister said I needed experience or a degree. Mentors told me to pray for focus. Friends told me "do what ya gotta do." So, I prayed for focus.

A month later I started doing a little marketing and advertising for a friend of mine's business. When I got him a client the first time, I was thrilled! I loved the rush and couldn't wait to do it again.

That's when I first actually HEARD my sister suggest business. She had been saying I should start my own business or do something like that. I always brushed it off as something she would do but not that I would do, though I knew I could.

Once I heard it, thought about it, and prayed about it, I knew I was going back to school. I'd major in business. It was this crazy "click!" that happened. My mind, heart, and spirit were all in check.

So I started telling people what I was going to do. But the thing was, I still had the same habits and reasons for going back as I started school with: it was expected and seemed like a good plan and I wanted to please everyone.

I went two months without a job, and a HARD two months it was! God provided, though, and I made it through. When I started working again, I got two jobs at once. I hated it.

I hated every minute of having two jobs. One I didn't like and the other I liked but certainly didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing. That's when I started asking questions.

I asked the people I worked with why they worked there. Most answers include something like, "I have to. I have a family to support." And, "I'm a recovering addict. I couldn't get a job elsewhere."

Most planned on only being there a short time, but ended up there for a year or more. It was terrifying to hear. I couldn't imagine working there for more than a few months, much less a year!

I kept asking questions and kept getting the same answers.

Then people at work started commenting on how quickly I picked things up and that I must be a "fast learner." I didn't understand what was so hard about what I was doing. Simple things like "tagging" where you'd find the number of the product, take the tag where it was placed off, and replace it with a new tag. The guy teaching me told me it took him a couple months and that I might have a little trouble with it. When he saw me doing it quickly, he was surprised and, it seemed, a little confused.

I started realizing what my parents meant by wanting more for me then a mediocre job. Not that there is anything wrong with blue-collar jobs. We NEED people to work them. They're what keeps this country running, but everyone has different skills, different abilities that require different amounts of intelligence. Now, in no way am I saying I'm better than any person I have worked with, but I have the opportunity to do more. I have two parents that are supportive and will help pay my way, I have the necessary intelligence to make it, and I have the ability to rise to that challenge. So many of the people that I have met and talked to didn't have that. I have had a complete and total 180 perspective change. Instead of school and class being optional and just school, it's like a job to me now.

See, I don't mind working. In fact, I tend to enjoy it most days, but I certainly don't want to work something I just "don't mind" for the rest of my life, especially when I have the amazing opportunity to get a degree and do something I really enjoy and am good at. So now that I know that, I have motivation. Here's how I see work: you go, you make it through the day and week, you get paid. That's how I see school now. Going to class is work, I make it through, I work through the week, and I get paid with grades.

I think the biggest difference between going back to school now and starting school out of high school is I now know what it's like to make a living and how hard it is. I have a respect-- AN EXTREME RESPECT-- for those that work the jobs that pay minimum wage. I have that same respect for people that hate where they work but do it anyway because they have to.

God has shown me more about the "real world" in the past six months than I have seen my entire life. It's been fruitful in learning how to live on a budget, work somewhere you don't want to but you have to, being responsible, and so many other countless lessons that won't be visible for years to come.

As I was on my way to college almost three years ago I said this very sentence, but today I say it with a different truth and I say it with a conviction like no other, a motivation to go to college and get a degree, and with the full knowledge and confirmation that God has me where I am,

"I CANNOT WAIT TO GO TO COLLEGE."

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and He does, so I can.

--Maggie Mae