Words of Truth

Cold.  Yes, it’s cold.  I’m sure this is no newsflash to most of you, since most of my readers live in the Midwestern United States, where temperatures are below 0° F right now.  For the record, it is currently -9° F (-22° Celsius, for those of you from countries that haven’t landed on the moon).   We lit off our fireplace last night, which was nice, not because it made it any warmer in here, but because it made us THINK it was warmer.   The pipes froze in our downstairs bathroom again.  They do that every year when the temperatures approach zero.  I should probably rip the drywall off and throw in a bunch of insulation, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.

Which brings me to what I’m doing currently.  For those of you who missed my last post, I did not pass my Pediatrics class (got a B- average instead of a B on the tests).  Since my university only offers that class once a year, and since these classes are cumulative (not the right word, but it’s where you have to take the first one before you can take the next, and so on), I have to wait until this September to retake Pediatrics before I can do my residency in the spring of 2016 and graduate in May 2016.

What does this mean?  It means a couple of things. First of all, it means I need a job, because I’m only PRN (as needed) at my old job, and I would really like to find something full time that is closer, better hours, etc.    Secondly, it means that for the first time since 2011 I am not enrolled in classes, because this program I’m in is an around the calendar program (we have classes in the summer, in other words).  I actually get a break.

And what am I doing with this break?  Well my plan is to work (obviously), study (so it’s easier the second time), and fix up my house so I can sell it.   I worked my last regular shift in December, celebrated Christmas in Indiana, and then we went on an 8 day trip to Iowa (including 2 travel days) to celebrate Christmas with our family and friends there.  That was a really great time. We got to do a white elephant gift exchange with my Iowa family, spend a few days playing games with them and just hanging out, and then we spent a few days with my best friend and his family.  I got him a few, small Christmas and birthday gifts, and he got me something too (which I wasn’t expecting).  He got me a set of targets that have bags of explosive powder attached so that when you hit the target, there’s an explosion (kind of like this, but not as dramatic.

On Thursday we took the targets to a local shooting place (i.e. some guy’s soybean field) and got the targets ready. The first thing you do is mix these two powders together,which the packaging stated made us “explosives manufacturers” according to the law, so if we blew our legs off, they would not be liable for giving us explosives because WE were the ones who manufactured them. Whatever. We set up the targets and only one of the eight actually exploded. It was worth it, though.

We said goodbye to Iowa and came home. And I think we brought the Iowa temperatures with us.

I have been going to school since 1979 when my mom took me to kindergarten. I spent all those years in elementary school, junior high, high school, then four years of Bible college, three years of seminary, then I took a few classes each semester because I was having difficulty finding a church so that I could start working on pre-med. While I was doing that, I found a church to pastor, so I switched over to nursing school, which I would use to supplement my pastoral salary. I graduated from nursing school in 2005, and had a three year hiatus where I was not taking any classes at all. Then I started taking classes to finish out my BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing), which I finished in 2012. Then my MSN (Master of Science in Nursing) program began the very next month. I have been in that program ever since. All of this means that aside from the three years after I became an RN, I have been constantly enrolled for the past 35 years.

Suffice it to say I am sick of school.

I have really looking forward to finishing this MSN program. I have told people, “As soon as I finish this program, I am never going back to school again!” My instructors have tried to get me interested in getting my doctorate (either a DNP “Doctor of Nursing Practice” or a Ph.D), but up to this point I remain firm that this degree will be my last. I will walk across the stage wearing that stupid square hat one more time, and one more time alone.

I told someone last month that I was glad it was getting cold, because that meant that the next time it gets warm (next spring), I will be almost ready to graduate for the last time.

God works in mysterious ways.

Isaiah 55:8-9 says

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

All that to say that I received notice on Saturday that I did not pass my class this semester. I was shocked, because I knew that before the final exam my grade in the class was 93%. I studied as much as I could given my busy schedule (working and doing clinical hours) for 60 hours a week for the past two months, and when the time came, I took the final exam. I knew I did not do well on the exam, and my final grade on the exam was 74%. That’s a C, people. But in graduate school, anything less than a B is failing. So I “failed” the final exam.

This is a summary of the phone call Saturday night.

But, I factored the test in with the rest of my grades and found that it only brought my average down to 91%, which is an A minus. But that’s not the end of the story.

Evidently this semester my school instituted a policy that states if a student does not get an 84% average in their test and quiz score for the class, then the rest of the stuff they did for the class isn’t counted, and their test/quiz average is their final grade. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but there it is. So my 74% on the final exam made my test/quiz average….83.4%.

Yes, that’s right folks. If I had another 0.6% I would have passed. That means if I had just gotten ONE MORE TEST QUESTION correct, I would have had an 84% average on the test/quiz grade, and I would have had that A minus.

My reaction when told I didn’t pass.

But I didn’t. And so now I have to come to terms with the fact that, for the first time in my life, I have failed a class. The fact that my overall grade in this “failed class” is 91% does not make me feel better, because I still have to sit out of school for the next eight months, waiting for the next opportunity to take this class, which starts September 2015. This pushes my graduation date back to May 7, 2016.

I was ready to be done with school. Now I am more ready than ever, but unable to stop any time soon. I will simply keep trusting in God that He knows what is best for me, and push forward in faith.

I plan to study my textbooks from the past several classes to make sure that I know this stuff forwards and backwards. Maybe this is God’s way of helping me pass my board exam the first time, and making me a better nurse practitioner in the long run. In any case, I bow to His wisdom and will continue to trust in Him to guide and direct my steps.

When I turned 18 in 1992 I registered to vote. I selected Republican as my party because I looked at both parties, and I identified most with the platform of the Republican party.

• I believe that workers should get to keep most of their money and spend it as they see fit.
• I believe that charity begins at home and not in Washington DC.
• I believe that all life is precious, and therefore abortion is murder and euthanasia is either murder or suicide.
• I believe that capital punishment is just and right for crimes that warrant it.
• I believe that our nation’s borders should be secure so that those who belong here (i.e. “citizens”) can enjoy the freedoms and responsibilities of being Americans.
• I believe that immigration is good so long as it is legal. Humans have not always lived on this continent, and therefore EVERYBODY’s family came here from somewhere else.
• I believe that Americans should have the right to worship, speak, and spend their money as they see fit, no matter who gets offended.
• I believe that there are three good reasons to preserve our citizens’ right to have pretty much any gun they want: to hunt for food, to protect ourselves from criminals, and to protect ourselves from our government.

I have donated money, supported, and spoken out for Republican candidates, with the hope that the representatives I voted for would hold to the values that they and I shared (supposedly). They have not.

Last month I was happy that the American people sent a message to Washington. We said, “We don’t like the policies of the Obama administration and the liberal Democrats in power. We don’t like Obamacare. We don’t want amnesty for illegals, etc etc.” The Republicans picked up NINE SEATS in the Senate, giving them a 54 to 46 advantage. That is the most seats picked up in a single election by Republicans in the Senate since the 1980 election. Anybody remember the Reagan landslide? Yeah. That was how big this election was in the Senate.

And then, in response to the expressed will of We the People, President Obama issued an executive order granting asylum to people who broke the law by coming here illegally, spitting in the face of the American voter.

In response to Obama, the Republicans cried out against his executive order, railed against his dictatorial style, and then, last night while many of us were asleep, wrote him a check giving him the financial power to implement this and other policies. In short, we were betrayed by the very Republicans we were counting on to defend us from Obama’s policies. I would say it will get better after the new guys take office next month, but the leadership will not change. It’s still going to be Boehner and McConnell. To quote Steve Deace:

“President Obama said his Marxist policies were on the ballot in this year’s election, and we overwhelmingly rejected them. Nonetheless, we’re going to get them anyway. All thanks to the same House Republican leadership that promised us more transparency, no more massive omnibus spending bills nobody had read, and to stop Obamacare and Obama’s amnesty. Yesterday, they betrayed every promise, broke every vow, and will fund for at least 9 months everything they told the American people they would stop.”

And so today, I am stating with emphatic resoluteness: I am no longer a Republican. If Republicans stood for the things that I mentioned at the top of this post, I would gladly be counted among their number. If Republicans returned to the positions Ronald Reagan held, I would stand up for them. But until that day, I declare myself a “Conservative,” and that only.

I  posted this video some time back to Facebook, but finding something you posted on Facebook is next to impossible, so I wanted to put it somewhere I wouldn’t lose it again.

If you haven’t seen the video, it’s a comical look at the ridiculous idea of our immigration policy being changed to allow lawbreakers (those in the US without permission) the right to become citizens.  As I have said before, if you came home and found a family living in your house without your permission, your first thought is not to ensure that the children have eaten, that the parents have a good job, etc.  Your first thought is to get them out of your house. And that is what we should be doing with people who are here without permission:  send them back where they came from.  Maybe give them a pamphlet telling them the legal process to become an American citizen, if they are still interested.

Anyway, here’s the video.