School News

I have officially decided to change my major. When I started taking classes through Liberty University's distance learning program last year, I enrolled as a psychology major. As I began taking various courses, I've found that I enjoyed the theology and philosophy classes as much as, if not more than, the psychology classes. I began contemplating various scenarios in which I might pursue both my interest in counseling and my new-found love of theology and philosophy. I was looking into the possibility of a double major, etc. Liberty solved the problem for me by adding a brand new degree program: Bachelor of Science in Religion - Biblical Counseling Specialization.

OK...so they didn't add the program just for me... In fact, I had no idea they were going to add it until I just happened to stumble across it on their website one day. But I'm pretty excited about it. I'm still not sure what direction I want to head in ultimately (grad school), but my interests are in counseling and teaching. I had thought originally that I would probably go for a MA in Marriage & Family Therapy and focus primarily on counseling. However, with my new-found love of theology I must confess that Liberty's Master of Divinity in Theology & Apologetics is looking pretty good to me at the moment.

Either way, I don't plan to give up my interest in counseling. I've already got a pretty solid background in psychology and I'm also currently working through a program with AACC called, Caring for People God's Way (it's designed to help lay-people in the church become equipped to help counsel others). I think most teachers are placed in the unique position of also serving as counselor for their students in many instances, so I plan to include counseling as a continued part of my studies regardless of which direction I decide to take when it comes time for grad school.

On a less positive note, there is some chance that I may have a more difficult time getting financial aid for the 2008-09 school year than I have in the past. It's a long story. In a nutshell, when I lost my job last May I withdrew the money I had in my retirement fund to pay off the majority of my debts, buy a used car so I would no longer have a monthly car payment to worry about, and to have money to survive on until I find another job. Finding another job has taken a lot longer than I anticipated! But the point is, since I used the majority of my money to pay off debts, I no longer have that money on hand. The problem arises from the fact that when I file my tax return for 2007 it's going to look like I made a huge amount of money last year! Besides throwing me into a higher tax bracket and making me have to pay huge amounts to the government in taxes, it could end up hurting my financial aid application by making it appear that I should have plenty of money to pay for classes myself when in fact I don't.

I'm hoping that it won't end up hurting me as much as I fear it will. Either way, I would ask you all to join me in praying that God's will be done and that I will have the grace to accept whatever happens with the knowledge that God isn't surprised by it even if it's a big disappointment to me. Maybe I'm weird, but I'm really excited about my studies and if I don't get the financial aid I need for next school year it will be all I can do probably to take any classes at all. I definitely wouldn't be able to afford to take a full class load. I'm still hoping things will work out so that I can, but I'm also trying to prepare myself for the possibility that it might not happen.

At the same time, I do want to find and follow God's leading. If He knows that I need to slow down on the school work for a time so that I can focus on something else He wants me to focus on then I want to be open to that and accept it without complaining. From my viewpoint, finishing my undergrad degree as quickly as possible so I can move on to grad school seems like the best thing, but God knows better than I what I need. So, help me pray that I will know and gladly follow God's leadership no matter what happens.