Stuck in the Waiting

          "Stuck in the waiting" feels like what I'm doing now in life. Everything that I'm involved in or want to be involved in has the "waiting" sign on it.  It could be in my personal life, my future career, or my current job. If you know me at all, you know that patience is a virtue that I have to practice daily especially in times like these. I'm not a very patience person to start with and I'm just saying that nicely. If something is going to happen and I know it could change my life or the lives of others, I want it to happen now but things don't work that quickly. If they did, then we wouldn't need God. I feel like God is using this "stuck in the waiting" time to draw me closer to Him and to fix the many problems that I have in my life. The problems that I grew up believing that they were okay.
            If you know me, you know I have had a crazy life altogether. Moving all over MO, 5 siblings, and the 2nd youngest of them all and so on. I love it, don't get me wrong. My family is very close and I love that but I've had some challenges that became natural for me and I'm sure no one knows about it. I've started habits and they have become natural for me because I needed them everyday while going to school and meeting new people but mainly it was because of high school. I had a very big thought life which is good for playing by myself or just for the times I wanted to be alone but when it hasn't stopped when you become an adult it could be a problem. That problem could be that your thought life start making up things that aren't true and block out people that you don't want it to block out. You could start being mean to people that you don't want to be mean to and it could block out the true you. It could also be a problem because you don't know how to make decisions by yourself because everyone made them for you when you were younger even your closest friends.
               I remember my first best friend would do that to me. I loved her too death but it didn't help me. We would play whatever she wanted to play and however she wanted to play it. We would play Barbies most of the time. I would always be Ken because she always wanted to be Barbie. She, even, made that simple of a choice for me. Yes, I was one of those girls for the first 10 years of my life. Now that I look back on those moments, I laugh about them but at the same time it is sad.
               Those kinds of habits in my thought life, I'm starting to learn, is hard to remove. I'm learning about having a steadfast mind in Christ and it sounds so hard but really shouldn't be. For a person who has lived lies all her life because she put up those lies to be safe, it is hard to break those down even if you want to really bad. Honestly, it does get you stuck in life where you just keep repeating the same actions and getting the same results and then you wonder why is this happening. I've realized that these past few months and I'm trying to break from it. I've put up so many walls, trying to be so many things to please so many people in my life instead of being who God wants me to be in Him. Now because of those thoughts, I'm stuck in the waiting while it seems like everyone is moving onto greater things.
                 I prayed a prayer this morning that I want to keep praying until I am where God wants me to be in my life whether it be with career, friends, or even marriage if He is willing. Here it is:

                  "Dear Daddy,
                           I have come to the conclusion that I've been living a sinful life and I want to change everything. My mind has been sinful and lately my actions and words have been too. I want to surrender my mind and life to you. I want to master intimacy with You. Please show me any hidden sins that I need to confess to You. Remove all fleshly things and thoughts away from me. I want Your Will above mine. Please use me as You want and with whatever you want. Whatever knowledge, wisdom, words, and so forth. You know I am in such a hard place right now with decision making and that has never been one of my strong points either. I'm scared that I will mess my whole life up if I chose apart from You. I'm in that season of life where every decision I make can be a curial one. To sum up my decision making process it would be should I stay or should I go. I'm stuck in the waiting and it isn't a very fun place to be. I'll admit that. Please help me catch every sinful thought and give it back to You. I want to be a strong women who shows Your Splendor to others."

                    In Christ's Love,
                           Amen."

              It is a strong and deep prayer but I'm ready for the next step of my life. I'm ready to do something and stick with it for the rest of my life. Even though, I like where I am right now, it won't get me through life or the life that I have always desire since I was a little girl. I'm still learning a lot. If I needed to pick a new idea for me in my Christian walk that I need to work on. Having a steadfast mind and how to get it would be it. Big time. It is all new to me. Tearing down the old wallpaper and putting up new wallpaper that we keep in on the path with God. Listening to God and doing things differently. Yeah, it will be scary but what kind of adventure is life if we aren't willing to take it.  Life is an adventure and we need to take it.
              Just to make it clearer. I wouldn't want to relive my life any other way. I am blessed because of the way I grew up and I love every memory of my life. The good and the bad ones. Going back to the towns where I grew up feels so good. I got to go back to one town over Easter and nothing changed and I remembered everything. The houses were still the same or close to it. The only thing that had changed was that I was all grown up and looking back at the good times. I am the strong women I am today because of the way I grew up and the things I had to go through.  Never regret the life God has given you because it could be a lot worse.

Two Years and Writing

         I think that title is going to be the title of my anniversary entries. It is simple yet it tells everything that has been going on in my life in a way. I actually started this blog on the 9th of April, which was yesterday, but I was so busy last night that I didn't have time to write so here I am now. I know it has been two years going on 3 but I'm so blessed and thankful how my life has been these past few years and writing things out has helped me a lot. I don't know how many people read my blog but I don't care it is just a way for me to get things out and process them. I challenge you though if you want to see a life being changed read most of the entries if not all.
         I feel like God has taken me from wanting to be a missionary and traveling the countries to staying and traveling around the States, if not staying in AR, and help the children around where I am and will be. I think I started this blog when I started my then new job and now old job because I wanted to write down things about the children I had to deal with everyday and I did for a little while but then it got more and more about me and the path God is taking me on. It has been a journey for sure along with my job. I'm learning and growing a lot in every way as a person and in God. I've taken Bible studies that I have talked about on here and I have one more session that I really need to talk about that I just got down with. There might be a new Bible study starting next week that I will be writing about a lot more often then others.
          It is also going to just keep going onto my next dream which is getting my Master's in OT and being an OT. It already started some with all the observations but I'm not done with those. Hopefully, I'll be able to start back to community college this coming Fall and get some classes I need before going after my Master in it. It might take me 2 years just to get done with community college and then maybe 2 or 3 more years to get my Master's but it will be worth it in the end. I'm all for helping children in anyway I can and in away I think I understand OT things more then anything and it is interesting.
           With getting my Master's after the 2 years I'm done with community college, I might have to move away from AR for a bit so that will be really interesting and hard. I have fallen in Love with this state and the people in it. Leaving the memories and people behind will be so hard but God will be by my side through everything. I'm praying that maybe there is someway I can stay in the state but we'll see when the time comes. To be honest, AR was never my first choice of state to live in or was it on my list at all. I mean come on the West is a beautiful places with Montana, CO, WY, and so on but I do have to say that AR is in my top 5 now and it was like in my top 20 before I moved here.
           God has also shown me a lot about who I really am in Him and who He really wants me to be. Hence with all the OT stuff going on. I've become a lot more outgoing and a leader in things that I am most passionate about. I have spoken up when I know other people wouldn't and I have done things without thinking what people would care. I am a lot happier now and cry less. Those are big steps for me, really big steps. At my job too, I might continue to be and do those things if we are going the way I think we are going so we'll see. It's all in God's Timing! Things are changing for the better and I actually have a future to kind of look forwards too but it is a future that I would never think of on my own. God has really turned my life upside down.
            I feel like I'm writing my yearly entry since I have been in AR but I'm not and there will be more things that has happened before I write an entry like this in Aug. A lot more. Trust me. I'm still trying to understand some things and just getting started with those things after I understand them. I can't express how much God has blessed me over the past years and He will continue too. Please keep reading my blog if you are because like I said God is only starting to really work in my life in ways that I could not think of and I can't wait to share it all with you. Let's see if I can keep this blog going for 3 more years to make a total of 5 years. Let's see how big of a binder that will make or how many binders I will have at the end of those 5 years.

The Heart's Purpose

         I have learned a lot about how to Love God and then love others this past week. It all started with a Bible study called "God's Unfailing Love" but it got deeper as the week went on last week. In a strange but true way, I feel like the devil is trying to win my heart and I don't like that feeling. God and the devil both know my heart's purpose in life and if it doesn't please one of them like the devil, he will try to win me back. I use the word win very loosely because he never will get that far with me. My heart is in God's Hands and always will be even through the hardest of times.
         I can't write down all of what I'm going through but I will write some of it down so you can understand where I am coming from. You know when you write a friend a lot of emails and that friend doesn't write back but one of that friend's friends does write you back and you don't like it? You want your friend to read the emails and write back but that friend is too busy with things. You get mad at your friend's friend but you have no reason too because your friend's friend didn't mean for you to feel that way at all. For me, that is when the devil is trying to make me doubt and he wants me to stop doing everything for that friend but I am not going to.
          This title could be taken two ways and if I write it right you will understand the two ways that it could be taken. The way I like to take it is that God is working through me to that friend. God is letting me stand beside my friend through everything whether my friend knows it or not. I shouldn't be mad at anyone because I know everyone and they wouldn't try to even hurt me. I feel like that friend, I'll admit I might be wrong on this, might need an old time friend and I'm that friend. I like seeing my friend grow in so many ways and at the same time they help me grow too.
My heart's purpose is: to stay with this friend and rejoice with that friend when things are going good and vice via. I mean my friend is giving glory to God in all that is done. Why shouldn't I be rejoicing with my friend and just be happy. Just to be there for that friend through it all. What better way to be a friend then a friend that stays with you through everything then one who has already been with you and prayed for you through everything, right?
           At the same time, though, this title could be taken in a devilish way. This is what I mean by that. The devil knows that God wants us to live with Him forever so he will try and use everything to get us away from God. It could be at different times or the same time but he will use it.
My heart's purpose is: The devil only knows that we will be stronger together then apart because we have the same thought and purpose in life or close to it. By close, I mean our purposes could go together in a way. The devil doesn't want that at all. He doesn't want us to become stronger then how will he win us over. I will say this my friend and I love to win people for Christ so that is even harder. They might be different ages in different ways but we still have the main purpose at heart. The devil knows our hearts too and if people of the same purpose you can bet that those people will be stronger and that the devil is going to try and keep those people apart. It doesn't have to be just two people. It can be a group of 5 or a whole church.
              I've been in a church where there were fights among the church members because of a piece of farm land. They couldn't decide on whose it was or what to do with it. I'm not kidding. It is the little things that matter in life that sometimes the devil will get us on. The devil is out like a roaring lion seeking to devour people who love God. That is just his job. He is full of pride and thinks that everyone should worship him, when really God is the only one that we should be worshipping to and obeying. He got kicked out of Heaven because he wanted to be greater then God.

-"If we are both strong in God alone then it will be harder for the devil to get us if we are together. He knows our hearts and if we have the same purpose that purpose will be made stronger."
       
            Single people out there that are reading this, that is a good prayer to pray for you and your future husband. It came to me while I was praying and just had to share it. You want God the Center of your future married life so you both need to be strong in God so it is harder for the devil and it is even harder if you both of that same purpose in mind. You can encourage one another in Christ and the devil can't get in anywhere.  I'll be honest. I used to think that having that same purpose in mind didn't matter much, never really thought how it could affect a marriage, wanted a guy that had a fun but different purpose then me and I never really got the whole idea but now I do and I'm glad I get and see it. If I didn't, then life would be miserable in the long run.

This is only half of what has been on my mind this past week, mainly weekend. The other half I will write later and it is about where God is leading me, how, and why.

Observing at the High School

         Here is the entry about observing 3 high school students after I got done observing the Middle schoolers. I went straight over to the high school after getting done with the Middle school and it was really different in all the ways. It does seem strange when you know someone that works at the same place you are observing because now you feel like they are going to hold you accountable in some way or that you need to go ahead and do it because you don't want to let them down. The other reasons it seemed really different is because I saw 3 students that did have a disorder for sure and it reminded me of me.
          I had one girl that was in 9th or 10th grade and she had a disorder called "Angelman's Syndrome". She acted like she has an 18 month brain in a high school girl's body. The OT worked a lot on getting her fingers to work alone so she could type things instead of using all of her hand. She was grasping things with the her whole hand. She didn't hold the pencil right. The OT did a lot of different things with her. She got to play an Elmo Preschool game on the Ipad. It is where she could trace her ABCs with her finger using the screen. She had a hard time doing that though. The OT had to help her a lot. She tried to hit a lot when she was upset or didn't like what she was doing and she put a lot of things in her mouth like the blocks. She only stacked 2 blocks to make a tower. The way she usually plays is just opening and closing plastic tubs.
          Another student that I observed was a girl with CP. She was very outgoing and silly. She had a back brace so she could stand up straight. It helps with her posture. The OT worked with her fingers too. Her project was to pick up things like coins and while she was doing that she also added them up and found certain amounts for the OT. Her writing also looked like a Kindergarten wrote it because she couldn't hold the pencil right. She held the pencil between her fingers instead of making a circle with her fingers and keeping it in that circle. She also had problems with her visual motor. Her brain couldn't take information from one thing (computer screen) to another thing (piece of paper).
          The last student I had really brought back memories for me in a strange way. He was in the 11th grade and has CP and because of that also has bad reflexes. He was really friendly and talkative when he wasn't working. He also had a smile on his face all the time. He would jump up if you said his name loudly while he is working very hard. It was one of the reflexes that he needed to work on not to do. When he was younger, he had a problem with keeping beat but now he is in choir and loves it. The OT also told me that he is very good at singing. While writing, he jerks up his pencil, a long way, off the paper after every letter instead of keeping it on the paper or close to it. That usually slows things down because he would have to find his spot again and get start all over. He had to have his eyes really close to the paper while he was writing like he was almost touching the paper. He was doing that because his brain could only take information from a certain distant and realize it. Another thing about this student and the high school was they were so accepting of students that needed help. He was one of the popular ones yet he had little problems. That is a really good school when students with disabilities can feel safe and happy.
           We had to get this student from his AG class and that really stuck with me after I thought about it for a bit because that was me when I was in high school. Not only did the smells of welding things and planting things and doing nothing in class made back memories come back but also being pulled from a class. I was on the other end yesterday getting a student. Somewhere where I never thought I would be but I really knew how it felt. I was taken from classes all the time in school because of my speech. I had to go to speech class in the middle of things and they worked around some things but also came and got me when it wasn't a hard high school class like band. I just felt bad for that student feeling like everyone was watching him walk out of the room. Speech class was bad enough for me to walk out to what if I had to walk out for OT or PT.
          Another thing that seeing an AG class reminded me of is my AG classes and teacher. I just thought about how proud he would be of me if I do step up and get my Master's in OT. In a way, I am being that leader with my own life and the lives of others. I'm helping them get better at something so they can be better at life. I feel like this is the road I'm suppose to be on because God gave me the experience and the people to do it with. He gave me two great schools to observe so far and through those observations I did some great networking. I just feel like God gave me the talents, wanting relationships with people and not just any people but small children and youth, and creativity for being an OT. I can't wait to get going on this path God has for me.

Third Day at the Middle School

        As I was ending my last day of observations in the public schools, a lot of things hit me about the job and why I'm looking into being an OT. As days goes by, we, as people, don't think much about helping the elementary aged children out as much as middle school and on because we don't expect them to know as much and we know that they are still learning too. Where the children in middle school and high school, people expect them to know a lot more and my mind changed on that idea when I observed the OT yesterday.
        I started out with the middle school children yesterday and that was really fun. I got to be more  involved and play card games with them and just talk to them more because either they would talk to me first or vice via. The game I got to play was with a 6th grader that just needed help seeing and then letting her hands know what to do with the messages like laying the card down fast before anyone else. I have 2 other kids that I want to talk about from the Middle school.
        I had another 6th grade girl that had problems with her fingers. She could not just use one finger at a time because they all moved plus the muscles were just not strong enough to lift her fingers by herself. Some of the activities that the OT did with her was having her leave her whole hand on the table and left each finger up one at a time by itself. The girl said that it was even hard for her to do it. She also made an origami box because the more you push down on the crease when folding it the more it stay and you need strength for that. She was developing more finger strength with that activity. She worked on it because if you can't move just a few fingers at a time then it will make things harder because things will be slower for you to do. The OT also told her to write her address and phone number but she couldn't remember those two things. The Ot told her that she wanted her to bring them written on a piece of paper next time she sees her so they could try writing and remembering them.
         Then I had a brother, that was in 6th grade, of another boy that I had in the primary and he was the total opposite of his little brother. The OT had to take the work with him just like she did with his little brother. This boy had a caregiver at school during the day. I had to sit far away from him because he could have gotten very violent. He was non-verbal but so happy. Always had a smile on his face. He wrote letters and shapes but they didn't look like letters and shapes at all. He couldn't hold the paper while he was writing. He had a short attention span and colored like a preschooler. He couldn't draw a straight line even when the OT would draw dots to dots. He couldn't go from one dot to the another on either side of the paper. He did love playing with a few strings with wax on them. He kept playing with them. He was suppose to copy and shape but he couldn't do that and the shape was a circle. He still used the full grasp when he picked up everything including a pencil to write with. Didn't use just his fingers at all. He didn't know how to play with little blocks. The tallest tower he could build was 3 blocks high just because he couldn't grab them with just his fingers. He even had a hard time doing that. It took him 3 or 4 times to get it right.
          It was just sad to see that even middle schoolers have those types of disabilities. It is hard to see that they will never grow out of it unless someone tries to help them. This is why I'm so big on education at an early age, which is 5 and below. I knew they were there but it is still hard to see and it makes be realize and more thankful for the disabilities I had while in school because they could have been a lot worse. I could not think about how I would get through life without writing or reading or drawing. I would rather do those 3 things then talk. It is how I express myself the most right now and I always have through life. I would rather write then talk. That is one of the main reason I have a blog. I went to the high school yesterday too but that will have to be another entry either later today or sometime tomorrow.

Second Day in Public Schools

         I wasn't going to write at all today because I felt like I did and saw the same things today while observing but then I looked back at my notebook and saw that I saw some hard children today. I went to the Primary and Intermediate school today. They didn't seem hard at all but they were more complex like complex living situations and/or disorders. I have 3 children that really caught my eyes today and then I learned something new about the whole OT program itself. The intermediate school is where the Special Ed. office is for the whole school so that is where my OT's real office is plus most of her things.
         I got to observe a 3rd grader today that didn't know how to write or cut. She reminded me of a Kindergarden or 1st grader because that is how she was writing and cutting. She has a problem with visual tension and that is when the eyes will not focus on the thing you are doing at hand. They will look anywhere else but what she is doing. It is almost like she is closing her eyes when she is looking down at the table. You can see very little of her eyeballs when you look at her. She cannot cut out shapes. She tears them instead. I also heard a lot of of "I can't do this" or "this is hard" from her when she didn't want to do things and it mostly had to do with writing/drawing and cutting.
         One thing that I learned and love about the school is that they have enough space for the mental challenging children. They have extra rooms where if it gets to wild in the classroom a child can go a be alone for awhile in like a closet space room. I loved their "Special Ed." room because it was a classroom, computer room, and kitchen all hooked together. They did that for children who do not transition well and I got to see a child like that today. He is 10 years old. We had to take games and things for him to do there because he will fight transitions so less is good for him. We even had to make him come to the table to play with some candy because he is that bad at transitions. He gets a hour of OT because he has several disabilities. His family background was really rough on him. He could be very violent and mean if pushed the wrong way but I didn't see any of that today. He was really sweet and said "hi" to me and gave me a high 5. He loves high 5s and jaw pushes (those calm him down). He needs a lot of praises after every little thing that he does and if you don't give it to him right away he will tell you about it.
            It is amazing to see, though, because he did the games very fast and he is smarter then some of the "normal" children I saw before him. He is hard to understand but you can get most of what he is saying out of him. He looks so behind but yet he is so smart when he is calmed down. He did some scratch art which is a great idea for OT. I'm really going to use that when I become an OT. He is my left hander.
            Then I had another little boy with MR and he was really active. He acted like a 4 years old but was really 10 years old. The OT had him do some activities on the floor on his stomach and he could not stay on it for more then 1 min. He also has a hard time holding his body up so that is another reason he laid on the floor for activities, to build that upper arm strength. He had a hard time keeping focus and staying in one spot or one way. He would get up and then lay down and then move to one side and then to the other and so on. He had a very short attention span and has no understanding of personal space. He was one when the OT started with him, he would just "flap" all over the place because he couldn't keep his body still.
             The two important things that I learned about being an OT is RUMBA and a 504. RUMBA stands for Reasonable, understandable, measurable, believable, and attainable goals for each child. You want to make goals for each child so they can reach them and feel proud of themselves afterwards. Then I learned about another way to get a child into OT or any other special classes and that is with an 504. It is kind of like the IEP but the parents have to want it and pay for it. It is where the child is not "bad" enough where they need an IEP but someone thinks that it wouldn't hurt them to have a special class like OT just to make sure they don't get behind.
             A 504 is for one thing and only one thing and if they need help with more then 1 thing then they get an IEP. That is how I understand it at least. Another important thing that I learned today is that school OT is slower when it comes to seeing results then it would be at like a rehab or clinic OT. That doesn't matter to me. Hopefully, I get them for a year or more and if so that is way better then getting them for only about 3 months. If I can see changing in children's behaviors in about 3 months, only imagine what I can see in a whole year or more. That challenge right there is so inspiring to me. I think that is going to be my inspiring statement through grad school and the hard days as an OT. Which one would I rather have and see? Which one means the most to me?
         
       

First Day Observing OT in the Public School

         I LOVED observing OT at a public school especially a public school that was like the school I started in. I honestly felt like I was home again with cows, right across the school, in a pasture. It was the best of both my worlds as a child. Big school in the country far enough out where you could see cows from the front doors. I observed at the Pea Ridge Primary School today and it was so different then observing at a preschool. I was back in my area where I feel the most comfortable. It went by too fast and too easy for me. I thought it was going to be a lot harder but it really wasn't.
        The thing that I learned the most and really shocked me about public schools is that they seem to be more focused on the classroom things like writing, counting, cutting and coloring, and so on. They seem to work more on the fine motor then the gross motor things. The children just seem to have a lot more of that fine motor. Another thing that surprised me was they don't work with disorders at that age because it is hard to tell what a child might have so they just see how developmentally they are behind and work with that. They also work a lot with strengthening their hands and upper body muscles if need be and then their visual concept.
            They would do things like tangrams and draw on the computer, cutting out shapes, letter magnet broad where you had to write letters with magnets, trace letters, and so on. They also really care about getting the right grip on the pencil so that they can write nicely. Some of the children also brought their classroom work to the room because they were behind and it was writing work so it helped on their goals too. Something else I liked about the OT was that she gave the children minutes on the swing or with a certain toy and set the timer for a certain amount of time so they knew they were for sure done when it went off.
             It is all about the visual-motor intergeneration in the public schools. I also learned that sitting on the edge of the chair will help with core strengthening and focuses their attention more on the task at hand. I had a child that was in in grade and could not write her letters like a 2nd grader should. She had to trace them to get them right otherwise it would look like a Kindergarden hand writing. She tried paper to paper and by that I mean look at one paper with the letters on it and then write the letters on another piece of paper and she couldn't do it as nicely as when she traced it.
              The children did other simple things like finding beads in some putty or just play with plain putty for hand strengthening. Drawing shapes and letters and then cutting out shapes. They also bounced a ball back and forth because most of these children cannot even focus on a ball being throw at them. They don't have that connection between the brain and arms. I saw one child try and turn his head with the ball and not just his eyes. It was hard for him to move just his eyes. He did it but it was hard at first.
               There is a lot more paperwork to be done with the public schools to keep your back safe and in check but being a teacher's kid, I accepted that. That is all the public schools are now it seems like. Even though, there are more evaluations to be done and more meeting to go to like IEP meetings, the paperwork that I saw today seemed easy and I understood it. The times frames are about the same you can keep a child from 30 mins to 60 mins. in a public school because of the school day and all that they would miss in the regular classroom. The OT can get 2 15 mins intervals done in a half a hour and that is how you would fill the time out on the paper.
                 I will agree and say that, after working with a brunch of preschoolers for the last 8 years, it would be nice to get that one on one with a child if possible especially in a public school where I first wanted to start out at. I just didn't know what I wanted to do in a public school but now I do and it is different but I'm still helping children. If you know me at all, I am a big fan of being able to read and write because to me that is how you get along in life so I would LOVE to help children with their fine motor skills more then anything.