Could use a couple prayers.

[cfvickers]

First and formost, My mother needs prayer. She is a faithful Christian and I know she will appreciate it. She has been having a problem with her stomach for about 6 weeks, so her doctor thought it was her gall bladder and they brought her in to do whatever it is they do to check it. On one hand her gall bladder seemed fine, but in the process the found 2 or 3 spots on her liver that they are going to have to check out in the coming week or so. The doctor said it is entirely possible that it is nothing, but it could just as easily be serious. I know that if it is the lords will, even if it is something serious, he can make it nothing by the time she gets it looked at. Prayers for her health would be deeply appreciated. I would very much like for her to have a chance to watch my girls grow up. She is only 57 and if it is God's will, I would like to keep her around.

Now my issue, which isn't nearly as serious but an issue none the less.

I don't lead on to it much, even to those who know me best. But I am going through a bit of a rough internal struggle. It isn't anything compared to the struggles some deal with. I don't drink or do drugs, I don't even worry about chasing women since the divorce. I go to work, take college classes and most importantly take care of my girls. I have joint custody of my own two daughters where all responsibilities and time are shared equally between myself and their mother. My ex has even given me the same rights to the daughter she already had when we were married. Emma has called me daddy and seen me as her daddy as long as she can remember. She knows her biological father and even still says that I am her real daddy. He is a decent guy but his father never was much of a father to him, and he too was for the most part raised by a stepfather. Maybe he believes this is how it should be. But at any rate, that is just a short back ground. My daughters are 5, 3, and 2. I hope noone looks down on me for having such a short marriage, I never intended to divorce, never thought I would, but a man must draw a line somewhere and she crossed it. I have forgiven her for the things she did, and we get along like good friends now, I just don't think I could ever trust her again.
I started college just before we split until July of last year I had never even considered anything in the medical field but I wanted to go to school and I had my GI bill that needed to be used before the time ran out. so after looking into about every other profession and degree program I could find information on I decided to work toward a BS in Nursing. Now I am struggling with my classes just because I am very short of extra time. Yet I sincerely feel like the lord is telling me nursing isn't what he had in mind. I had the medical field right, but I sincerely believe He is telling me I am supposed to be a doctor of some variety. I say He is telling me this because I also honestly never have had any desire what so ever to be a doctor, and I have no idea how I will ever pull it off. When I have the extra time to put into my classes I do quite well, but given my previous record of lack of achievement in school classes (I did graduate high school but I never took my education seriously before now and I did the bare minimum to get by) I may never get accepted to any med schoolin the first place, and even still it will be a good ways off before I am ready for that. I just can't tell if I am misinterpreting something or if I am really supposed to do this. I have no want for serious financial gain, I want to be able to afford to send my girls to college, and eventually buy the house I live in now, aside from that I don't have ambitions of making a million. I am very happy with who I am and not ashamed of much that I do, personally I would be content with any amount of income that allows me to do the two things I have mentioned above. But something keeps telling me to switch gears and do something that is far and away more difficult and will take a significant amount of time away that I would otherwise be spending with my kids. I would have no issue with it if I didn't feel like they stood a risk of suffering. So would you guys pray for me that I may figure out what the lord really wants for me to do that I may do His will and in doing so find a balance that will allow me to be the daddy to my girls that they deserve and I so very much want to continue to be. I am so torn right now I don't know which way is up. I have never felt any desire to embark on anything lie this but I really believe this is what the Lord wants me to do. I just don't know how.

If you read all the way through this I thank you. You may be thinking it sounds foolish, but frankly it sounds foolish to me as well.

Please keep my mother, myself and my daughters in your prayers, I really could use all of the prayer I can get.

[ET]

CFvickers

A prayer will be offered for your Mom and her well being, as well as the family.

Concerning your dilemma my advice to you is “Let Go of the Reins”.
Like you I don’t seek to be financially wealthy and would be happy living a simple life.
There were times in my life I felt motivations to move forward and strive to achieve goals. They were struggles and heartaches to get there. But what I have learned over the years and feel I am often reminded is that God is in Control. So trusting Him is essential for moving forward. But what I also discovered that if He has a direction for you He will reveal/prepare the way for the direction of your life. Also it will be through His timing and not yours.

A human frailty is always wanting complete control of our lives and deciding what we need to do and how to do it. This is one of my weakness I often struggle with because I feel I know best on how to achieve a goal even for a God felt motivation. Here one feels you can please God by showing Him what you are prepared to do when in fact you may be hindering what He wants to do for you and for you to have.

Let go of the reins, put you faith & trust in God, and let Him take the lead in His timing.
He will show you the way because of who He is.


Ed

[deadon]

Praying for you Sir, Rusty

[ozark]

Children from a broken home needs you more than you need anything. You feel a need to be a professional of some type but I am sure it will take a period of adjustment before you are mentally and emotionally prepared to tackle the rigors of becoming a doctor. To become a doctor you would basically have to forget time with the children and devote your full attention to reaching that goal. I don't mean to be discouraging but attending the schooling required to become a doctor would by necessity remove you from being there for your children. It may be hard to believe that a divorce leaves a scar on children. They are tough and give their love freely but a home that is broken breaks the heart of children involved. I commend you for forgiving your wife and for treating each other as friends. But, I can't forgive her for hurting the children. Let some time pass and give yourself some recover time. If God wants you to become a Nurse or a Doctor he will open the doors that needs to be opened. To me, a divorce with children is as sad as death. It is failure regardless of who is to blame or the cause. My prayers will be that God has his will and I will be hoping that your Mother gets a clean bill of health soon. But my heart goes out to the children. May God give them the strength to withstand this terrible tragedy that others brought to them. They are innocent. Don't be angry at me, I am just being frank and honest in how I feel. God bless you and all concerned. Ben

[cfvickers]

You guys are not understanding. I don't have any personal desire to be a doctor. Never have. Never wanted to do anything of the sort. There are a thousand things in my life that seem to be signs from God that it is a calling. Thank you Ozark, You pegged exactly what I was asking you to pray for. For god to have his will. I am in complete agreement on my children. And I KNOW what I am saying when I say med school. Massive, HUGE undertaking that would take attention away from everything I enjoy about life. Bottom line is that it came to me about 6 months ago "this is your goal" completely from nowhere, I cannot explain it. I could never begrudge anyone for advising that my girls come before all except for God. there is no more sound advice. Anyway, when this feeling that my goal was to eventually be a MD of some sort, I was taken aback, I laughed about it to myself at first , saying yeah right! but it didn't pass, I have fought with myself over it until I worried incessantly about it. Not my ability, not the general rigors of making it happen, God wants it to happen it will, if not, it won't but more about "if this falls in my lap and it actually starts turning that direction, how could I possibly be the father I need to be. I am still almost embarassed to even mention it because I feel like I am probably about the most unlikely candidate you could imagine, and I worry that people would think I was a fool for even having the thought.

anyway, here is what I can almost say I KNOW. I have two callings in life. First is to be daddy. There is no greater gift or joy than my girls. I never new what love really was until that nurse handed Abby to me about 30 seconds after she was born, the umbilical chord was still attached. I have never been more scared in my life than when the doctor ran everyone but myself and his team out of the room because both Peyton (my youngest) and my wife (at the time) were literally dying if he didn't do something quickly. He grabbed me by the arm as I started to walk outbecause I thought he meant me too, said "you need to be in here, I don't know if I can save them" he did save them. so basically the highest and lowest moments in my life were at the birth of my girls. There is nothing on this earth more important to me than they are. the other thing I know is that I am put here to help people. Aside from being a father the only reward I feel in life is when I do good for others. I get no fulfillment from anything else. I love shooting and hunting and fishing and building fly rods, but being a father and doing good for others are the only things that I find truly rewarding.

Anyway, i appreciate all of your words and prayers, and Ben, again, I could never be angry over what you are saying here, this is my concern. I just want to do the lords will and I have been afraid lately of the sacrifice that may entail. At any rate, I am going to continue to slowly work toward my nursing degree for the time being. I am only taking a single class this semester and next so I am not just wading in neck deep.
when this first crossed my mind I figured maybe by the time I am 60, but then I felt like I started getting smacked around a bit, making me think I might need to give it a little more attention than that. But understand I am aware of the difficulty and rigors, and I don't in anyway mean to make it out like it is something that I think just anyone can go and fill out an app and do.

[cfvickers]

By the way, my parents divorced when I was 5 and I know the scars it leaves on the children. My parents, loving as they both were to me, both were constantly competing. Leaving me in a torn state for a good bit of my childhood until I learned to balance the affection I felt for both. I never want my children to go through that. and I have never ever at any point wanted my children growing up in a broken home, but some things happen that are beyond our control. All I can do now is make it as easy as I can. My ex has never met her real father and was raised by grandparents who treated her like a grandchild rather than their own child. She knows what it is to not have your father around and our experiences in life gave us cause to get along so they would still always have both of us and raise them together to the best of our ability.

[ozark]

One of my daughters has been a nurse for thirty years and I have a Grandson who is a Doctor. Your nurse training is so closely related to doctor training that the difference is difficult to detect. It appears to me that my daughter might be slightly more advanced regarding medical terms and deseases than my Grandson. Thirty years experience is a lot more than the schooling. If God has a plan for you to be a doctor then that is the path you need to follow and no doubt will. He is all knowing and fully aware of how that would take time away from your children. But only a complete fool would question the wisdom of God or compare it against our own thinking. Personally, I feel that you are doing precisely what you need to be doing at this time. Down the road and around the curves ther may be doors open that makes it clear what you need to do. I am proud of you because you want to do your duty to both God and your Children. I fully trust that God will not create a situation that will lead you from your duty to the children. It is hard to believe that He loves those children more than you do. Yet, that is a certainty. Regardless of how my comments appear, my hope is to encourage you and to convince you that following Gods will is always the path to take. God bless you as you struggle with these mind boggling decisions. Ben

[cfvickers]

You have encouraged me, Ben. I appreciate your words and respect your opinion. I appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers, I think I am going to just move forward as I am, take my school slowly and take care of my girls. And I will try to follow the God's lead wherever that may be. I guess it could have been better said like this: Please pray that I can stop worrying and just trust in the lord that things will be taken care of regardless where he leads me. I am not a worrier, never have been, but this worry has consumed me. And it comes from my love for my children. If the lord thinks I need to work in this rice mill for the rest of my life then so be it, I am not worrying about that, not really what I want, but I could find peace with it if that is what I felt the lord wanted. In reality it would make things easy but for the fact that I can not provide the way I would like. I have been in financial predicaments before and the lord has seen me through, I do trust that he will continue to do so. But I hate worrying, and in most cases don't do it. I say a prayer, give it to God, and move forward knowing it is all going to be ok. I simply haven't gotten past this one, and I know because I have prayed about it that the lord is just waiting for me to let go of the reins so he can get it under control. I have just been afraid to do so on this one for some reason. Thanks again. I am happy to know I have more than just a common interest in guns with you guys here.
I will keep you all updated on my mother's condition.

[Douglas]

our prayers go out to your mother,as far as the rest, let God be in control, if it be God's will He will make the way that will be right for all involved, God wants you to be a father to your girls, like He wants to be your Heavenly Father, pour your heart out to Him, and then listen to His reply. Good luck, keep us informed. Douglas

[stubblejumper]

cfvickers

I am new here and sort of "stumbled" onto this board tonight. I hate it when people say "I know how you feel" so I wont do that.. but I have been through a very similar circumstance in my life. I feel very deeply for you and I pray for the peace that passes all understanding to invade your mind at this time. May this also be a time that God uses to cause you to spend time in his word and in prayer. I pray that you will grow closer to him through this. If God has a specific will for your career I pray that he will make it abundantly clear and that you will not have to wonder. He can do that, just ask Moses and Paul. God bless you and your family

Ed