July 11, 2014 Life Lessons Learned on the Farm: Part 15 My last Life Lessons Learned on the Farm post was back in March. A lot has happened since then, some good and some not so great. Life goes on and so do the Life Lessons! Most of my previous lessons have been things I learned during my childhood while growing up on my parents’ farm in Duffee, Mississippi; however, what I recently learned is that lessons can be learned no matter how old the person. I guess an old dog can learn new tricks after all. My most recent lesson came about after my last two trips home. At the beginning of the spring my family and I noticed several trees in and around the yard that had not sprouted leaves. We continued to watch them all spring and the beginning of the summer to see if they were truly dead. Just when we considered cutting the trees down, three trees unexpectedly sprouted leaves. Sprouted leaves in JULY!!! My mom and I were looking out the patio door one afternoon and were discussing the trees surprising rebirth when it hit me: just when we were ready to give up on the trees, they blossomed, reminding us that everything happens in God’s time, now our own. I began contemplating this and realized that just like us giving up on things; we also give up on ourselves. Many times we have our entire lives planned out just to discover that life has this uncanny way of diverting our course and altering our plans. Personally, I knew in seventh grade that I wanted to become a physician. That was my goal in life, along with marriage, children, and financial success. While attending the University of Mississippi, those plans were altered, and my path diverged. I chose to earn a degree in biology and then go on to graduate school to receive a Master Degree in Higher Education. I then moved to Memphis for a job at the University of Memphis that was eliminated due to budget cuts. Life then steered me towards earning another degree in microbiology with the goal of finally going on to medical school. Again, just when I thought I was headed towards my life goal, life through a curve ball and I ended up working for a research lab and eventually found myself in fine dining management. Just like the barren trees in my parents’ backyard, one day I woke up! I realized that restaurant management, a great job for some, was not my life’s ambition. I wanted to be in the medical field. My goal was to be a physician, but that did not materialize for me, yet a good friend of mine was there to recommend the profession of nursing. Her daughter was a patient at St. Jude Children’s Hospital and she knew how important nurses were to her daughter, and just how much of an impact nurses had in her recovery. After a long process and a few other curveballs, such as back surgery, I graduated with my BSN and was blessed with a job working in ICU Stepdown on a ventilator floor at Baptist Memorial Hospital. My goal to be in the medical field had finally come to fruition in its own time. Many times along this path, I doubted myself, questioning whether or not I had what it took to be what I had planned to be from seventh grade. I gave up on myself often when others had not given up on me so easily. I became complacent with the status quo. I just became…dead in so many ways. Just like the barren trees, something woke up inside me and I became alive again. I feel like this “something” was God putting into motion a plan that HE had planned for me from before I was formed in my mother’s womb. So often we let OUR plans get in the way of HIS plans for us. If we let him steer us, then all of our dreams will materialize in front of our very own eyes. When you feel lost, when you feel complacent, or when you feel like giving up on yourself because things are going the way YOU planned, remember Brad’s Life Lessons Learned on the Farm: #15, “Just because your tree is barren today, it doesn’t mean that it will be barren tomorrow.”
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 01:27:46 +0000