Graduation!!!!

I can't believe it, but at the age of 30, I am finally graduating!!!!! I didn't think I would care so much and to be honest I was a little embarrassed at first to tell people because it took me sooooo long to get a two year degree!! But then I began to realize how visible God's hand was in me completing this degree and now I couldn't be more proud to share it with people!!


Let me take you back a bit.....

In 1996 I was a junior in highschool and before I could finish that year of school, I was a mother and a drop out. I did decide to go back and get my GED only after I had difficulty finding a job without one.

Over the next several years my life was like a roller coaster. It was spinning out of control at a very rapid pace, but the sad thing was, I thought I had it all together.

Every time I thought I was getting my life back on track, I would find some way to make it worse! I got pregnant with my daughter at 21 and soon after, found myself alone and now a single mother of two.

I look back at that time in my life and the things I was doing and I am shocked, and although I know full well it was me that did them, I have a hard time remembering who that person was.

I tried several times to go back to school after 99' but something or someone always got in the way.

Fast forward to today...

When I think about my life now and how extremely different it is from then, I fully understand what God is capable of if you allow Him in, and I am humbled at the investment He made in someone who was as broken as me!

In just a few short years, He took me and molded me into someone who, on most days, I'm proud of. My focus and priorities in life became so clear and with that, I've been able to accomplish so much in such a short amount of time! In three years, I have been blessed with a WONDERFUL and suppportive husband who has taken care of our home while I've been going to school full time at night. He has supported me every step of the way, and I can only imagine how stressful it must have been for someone with no children to come into a family with two kids and take on that full time responsiblity, but he did and never once made me feel like it was a burden!

And my parents, my mom and "dad". It was Del, my "dad", that pushed for me to participate in graduation because it would be the first for me and he really wanted to be there. I thank God for Del everyday because I never knew what love from an earthly father felt like until he came into the picture. He gave up many weekends to take the kids for us so that I could focus on my school work. Every step of the way he has been there encouraging me to finish and supporting me in every way he could. Here is a man who when he met my mom 13 years ago, had no children of his own but entered into our family, not wanting to change it, but just wanting to find a place to fit into it. I gave him so much grief at first but he hung in there! I'm so grateful that he did ( :

I realize that this graduation is about more than a degree, it's a testimony to God's work and will in my life. I am beyond grateful for the new creation that I am and for His willingness to never give up on me!!!!!