What I'm Expecting in 9 Months...

This past weekend I took a mental break from my normal routine to just relax.  And I realized in 9 months so much is going to change in my life.  While most people associate 9 months with having a baby and life changing in a sense of less freedom, less sleep and less time,  9 months has a very different meaning for me.  It means more freedom, more sleep, and more time.  It means I've finally come to the end of the grad school road.  And I can finally breathe again.

For the last 3 years I have woke up the majority of days at 5 or 6a to study...or go to work because I needed to leave at a decent time in order to come home and study.  I have sacrificed vacation for clinical hours.  I have sacrificed sleep to spend time with friends and family.  I have sacrificed Friday nights out for Friday nights writing papers.  And although I have managed to 'manage it all', it has not been without exhaustion.  And in 9 months it will be over.  And I will have graduated and get to enjoy coming home after work and not having to balance dinner, homework, research, & reading.  I won't have to feel guilty because I want to train to run a marathon...and running means time away from studying.  I won't need to wake up at 5a unless I want to, which I doubt to ever actually want to do again!  I won't need to drink coffee...I"ll drink it just because I love it.

The last 3 years haven't been easy.  In between late nights and early mornings of homework, studying and writing papers, there has been extreme heart ache, abandonment, change and challenge.  And halfway through this journey life came to a momentary halt and everything changed in my world.  And I had to make a decision to press forward or stop.  And pressing forward meant moving in a direction that I really couldn't see.   But  I've never been fond of quitting or losing so I pressed on.  And in 9 months it will all pay off.  Over the last several years, God has taught me more about perseverance than I ever imaged I could learn...certainly more than I ever wanted to learn. 

Yesterday a friend was in the middle of mini meltdown due to just feeling overwhelmed in life.  And her comment to me was that I seemed to balance a lot more in my life.  I had to correct her...that it's really just an illusion.  Each and every day is tough...but I have learned to tough it out.  And not give up.  And just press onward.

So each day that I wake up exhausted because I have failed to balance it all...I remember:
Romans 5:3-5
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

So in 9 months, I'm expecting a piece of paper that confirms I am indeed a Doctor of Nursing Practice and this perseverance has all been worth it.

9 months, meltdowns, and coffee,

Ashley Lucille

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