**************************************************
I chose "Aspiration" for today's post to tell you what I aspired to be as a child, as a young adult and now as the wife and woman I am.
Aspiration is a noun defined as "strong desire, longing, or aim; ambition: intellectual aspirations." While looking up the definition of Aspiration I found the following synonyms: yearning and craving.
As a child I can tell you my dreams were not to be a preacher's wife or an employee at a major wireless carrier's call center. My aspiration was to be like my mom. I am still confused as to why I wanted to be like her... we didn't have the relationship most moms and daughters do. But maybe thats why. My mom is a nurse. I remember going to nursing school with her when I was little. I remember going to the nursing homes she worked in and connecting with the patients. But somewhere in my senior year of high school that dream changed.
I wanted to be a chef and own a restaurant. I wanted to specialize in gluten free cuisine. Two things happened to me in high school to change my desire from being a nurse to being a chef/restaurant owner. My dad was diagnosed with Celiac Sprue Disease. This disease is non-curable but can be treated with a life long gluten free diet; specifically gluten found in wheat, oats, barley and rye. This was a big change for my family. Dad became disabled and he aged quickly. Learning how to identify gluten in common foods and where it came from was a huge challenge. The biggest challenge was cooking for him.
The second thing that changed my childhood aspiration was joining a new class offered at my school when I was a senior. It was a catering class. We baked tons of apple, pumpkin and rhubarb pies to sell for Thanksgiving, we sold food to other students during lunch time like lasagna and cheese cake. I learned that there was a lot of math in cooking and math was my favorite subject. I entered a culinary competition with a small group of my peers and we trained in a local restaurant. I was in the local newspaper. It was in this class that I found the source of my desire... the source of my craving. I made the choice to attend Western Culinary Institute and I graduated in 2004 with an Associates Degree in Restaurant Management. I was on the right track to reach my goal.
But God had different plans. I met my husband online in the fall of 2002. We became fast friends and started a long distance relationship almost a year later. Once I finished classes I chose to come to Arkansas in December 2003 and complete my Internship for college. Jeff and I got married less than 2 months later. I was only 19. I was still in that time of my life where I wanted to have fun and follow no rules. I did join the church Jeff and his family attended and I was baptized. God slowly worked on changing my heart.
My aspiration now that I am a preacher's wife (as of 2 weeks ago) is to show daily that Christ lives in me. I desire to show compassion and love where ever I can. I want to be a good wife and helpmate to my husband, I want to be a mother and raise children. I no longer desire to own a restaurant. I still love to cook and miss it so very much because I cannot fix meals for my husband anymore due to my work schedule... but owning a restaurant is no longer my desire.
My desire is to honor and glorify God in all that I do. I make an effort to do so each day at my call center job, at home with my husband and in the other activities that I do. God has given me a purpose... God is my purpose.
