December 18th, 2015
This marks the day that Levi is an official graduate from BYU-Idaho! Congrats to my amazing hard-working-goal-making-hunk-of-a husband. He made it to the end, and now we wait a year for him to start it all over again. (: Funny how schooling works like that, isn't it? You finish Elementary just to go to Jr. High and you finish that so you can proceed to High School, then College, etc. An end is never really the end. But it is still a huge accomplishment and an even bigger stepping stone to the ultimate goal -- PA school. How grateful I am to Levi for all the hard work he puts into his passions.
The other wonderful thing this picture captures is the fact that Levi and I are parents. I am now a mom. First a foremost I am a daughter of God, a wife, and now I have added another sacred title of being "Mom."
While I was pregnant the thought of going back to school once the baby came was a quick, easy thought to process. "Of course I will go back! Baby will have a babysitter everyday for just a measly 3 hours for the first semester back and then I will come back home to be with him all day," thought I. Then reality struck when I had baby in my arms trying to do homework the semester I had him. I hated putting him second. Even though I told myself that I was doing this for him, it felt like I was still putting him below schooling.
I had a friend in the same situation as me who pointed out to me a feeling I was also experiencing --we would both get frustrated with our child when he became fussy because it was taking us away from homework rather than get frustrated with the homework for keeping us from our child. We discussed how terrible we felt about that. It should be the other way around! Get mad at homework for not letting us give our babies all the attention they need. It clicked. Right there in that moment, it clicked.
School is important. Education is important. Being able to provide for the family is important. But in that moment God spoke to my heart. He told me that I could still do all these things! That if I truly put my family first (which in my case means not going to school right now) that those things would naturally come (with a bit of effort). I was reminded of my mom who doesn't have a degree behind her name but is probably a qualified nurse, teacher, counselor, and seamstress by now. That came with time, research, and many tears of her own and many tears from her 12 children.
Most women I know and respect and someday aspire to be, don't have a degree. Now that does NOT make getting a degree bad, nor does it qualify me to excuse myself from trying to obtain a degree. I have a passion of my own to fulfill (becoming a Therapeutic Recreation Specialist) someday, and in the meantime I can still apply the things I already know how to do in my growing family! Besides getting a degree right now would only be put on pause the second I got it to raise a rambunctious 1 year old. I don't see the point in killing myself and my family to get a degree, just to have one.
It boils down to the fact that I feel as though God has answered my prayer and helped me make a very hard decision. It makes me sad to turn my back to one of my major passions, but that hole is filled as my whole heart turns to an even greater passion. Staying at home will not be easy. I will have to push myself. I will need to be very self-motivated. I will have to constantly direct my time and attention to a tiny baby who can't talk or walk (at least for now.) I will have to seek out opportunities rather than have them sitting in my lap or right at my fingertips. I will have to figure out how to volunteer and bring my baby with. I will have no car and get to walk to the store with my baby in the freezing weather (yes that has happened -- at least it was barely above freezing, cause in Rexburg that's warm winter weather.) I will have to work really hard to get human contact outside of my husband and baby. But I know it will all be worth it in the end. I refuse to let this decision to put school off for a few years destroy me or become something I regret later on because it is a decision God has clearly given me direction on. He has plans in store for me and my family, and to deny those plans and blessings with regrets is silly, so this is me choosing to love this decision and not look back.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not preaching the idea that this is the right decision for everyone. I believe in a God who gives general and individual instruction, and this so happens to be an individual one. Many women I respect and love are doing (or have done) school and kids combined. I don't think any less of them by any means. This just happens to be right for me and my family. Huge thanks to everyone who helped me make this decision. Now on to a new life. A new family. A new me.
