I like to journal as a means of communicating to God my prayers, my questions, my praises, and my frustrations. One question that I have asked God over and over is a classic: “What is Your will for My Life?” While reading through my journal, I came across this entry dated February 2nd, 2015:

Maybe I am asking the wrong questions. I ask You what Your will is for my life, but I already know that. Your will is for me to make Your name greatly known to the ends of the Earth and back. The real question I (maybe) should be asking is “what do I desire to do?” Not as a selfish question at all. Just as a way to ask myself what desire you placed in my heart. I can do Your will no matter what I do, but will I be serving with a divinely established passion for the work set before me? LORD, as I try to discern what to do, search my heart and get rid of any selfish motives or ideas. Show me the passion and desire that was given to me by you.

At the time, I had several equally appealing paths before me. I was finishing pre-requisites in my pursuit of a BSN. I was also a GACE certified middle grades teacher at the Montessori School of Rome, where I was pretty much promised a future in teaching if I desired. If I wasn’t torn enough, a friend of mine offered to sell me her business (a very successful business, of which I was very familiar with and could confidently run).

Three roads diverged in a Roman road.

As my journal entry illustrates, I stopped asking God what His will was and started searching within myself. God placed desire and joy in every one of us. The pursuit of joy is not a bad thing! We just have to place our ultimate joy in Him. It didn’t take very long for me to find out which road I was meant to take.

My desire to serve in healthcare started long ago, when I attended a medical mission trip to Mexico. At the time, I was studying as a pre-med major at Shorter College. Upon graduation, I applied for medical school. Two years in a row, I got to the interview stage, but was either rejected or wait-listed both times.

During my second interview cycle, my Dad was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. As I spent the last 8 months of his life in hospital rooms and, eventually, with hospice nurses at my parent’s home, I realized I might have been pursuing the wrong profession. Physicians are amazing, important, and I have the up-most respect for them, but I hardly ever saw one at the bedside in the hospital.

I did, however, spend a lot of time around nurses. It was the nurses that took care of my dad at the bedside, sometimes around-the-clock. It was a nurse that put a smile on his face when he needed one. It was a nurse that he called when he needed help or had a question about his treatment.

It was a nurse that asked him about his family in the recovery room and not only listened to his stories, but asked if she could come to his patient room to meet us. That moment helped him hold on more than she’ll ever know. She probably knew he wasn’t going to make it, but she treated him like a person who mattered. He lit up introducing her to us all, and showing her pictures. He had a good time, and he needed that.

Those experiences showed me the importance of the role the nurse plays, and that if I desired to be at the bedside, nursing was a profession I should consider. But I wasn’t ready to commit just yet. After my father died, I decided to take a year off to figure things out. I got a job teaching middle school students and became certified to teach math and science in Georgia.

Later, in the fall, my wife, inspired by a sermon by our pastor at West Rome*, asked herself (and later me): Why not now? If God might be leading me to a career in nursing, why not pursue it now?

Can I just take a moment to say that I am married to such a Godly woman, and I don’t feel I deserve her? She tends to be more sensitive to the Holy Spirit than I am, and I’m grateful God let me have her as my wife and help-meet. It’s moments like these that help me realize what God meant when he said “its not good for man to be alone.”

Being a staff member at Shorter University, she used her free time to look into everything it would take for me to apply to their nursing program. As fate would have it, all the prerequisites I didn’t complete in my first bachelor’s degree were offered the following semester, could be registered in a schedule together, without conflicts, at times that still allowed me to keep my teaching job. If that’s not proof of a living God, I don’t know what is. She helped me register and I was enrolled as a pre-nursing major within a week.

Yet despite all this, I was still asking God a few months later what His will is for my life.

Really?

I think maybe we, as Christians, make that question too complicated. At times, I know I was even obsessed with knowing the answer. I don’t think it’s supposed to be so hard. Perhaps, God has already equipped each and every one of us with the knowledge, desire, and gifting to choose the road designed for us, if we’ll just see it for what it is.

Maybe you’re asking God the same question I did.

So, my question for you is this:

What desires has God placed in your heart? What do you love to do? What are your passions? What have you been through that gives you a venue or opportunity to serve people?

Chances are, the answers to those questions are the key to finding out what God would love for you to be a part of.

I know that certainly was the case for me. With God’s help, I can do just about anything I set my mind to, but it was important for me to ask myself what I like to do. God cares about what I like to do. God made me to like what I like to do.

I’m excited to be where God designed me to be. I love people, and I have a strong desire to serve them at the bedside. And even though nursing is certainly not always a glamorous profession, perhaps God saw me through some tough times so that I could help shine a light on others through theirs, using my story as a testimony of His goodness.

Whatever is ahead, I am ready and equipped.

* Coincidentally, my Church’s mission statement is “Helping people find and follow God’s plan for their lives.”