Well, well, well

Well, I basically blinked and now here I am sitting at my desk and it's the tenth week of the semester.  WHOA!  Time is absolutely flying by.  Anyway an update on where I'm currently at with school and my faith.

October has been an absolutely CRAZY month.  Exam after exam, assignment after assignment, things never seem to stop.  Thankfully with the start of a new month in eight days things will slow down until finals the first week of December.

There have been times this semester that I have wanted to throw in the towel.  I was overwhelmed when the amount of work and information we had to know amped up.  There came a point where I had absolutely no motivation to do anything related to school and I wanted to quit.  I think we can agree that we all reach these kind of road blocks in our lives.  I mean we'd be kidding ourselves if we said we didn't right?

What do we do when we reach a point where we feel like quitting?  Do we quit?  Do we change our plans?  How do we stop feeling like the world is crashing down?

I feel like quitting, I feel like giving up so I ___________.

Fill in the blank.

Let's take a glance at a couple of different ways to finish this sentence.

1.  Change my attention to something else.

This option was very real in my life a few weeks ago; an option the can be useful when supplemented with option two which I will discuss in a little bit.

Option one.
1.  Study for school
2.  Become overwhelmed
3.  Get frustrated
4.  Resort to playing the piano or doing something else to avoid studying

Did my frustration and state of being overwhelmed dissipate as a result of directing my attention elsewhere for a little while?  Yeah, I'd say it did.  The real question is though, did the need for me to study and complete assignments go away?  Short and sweet...no.

I found myself in a vicious cycle.  Study...get frustrated...stop studying...do something else...repeat.  This cycle went on for days.  I just didn't want to do this grad school thing anymore, I was too frustrated and I had had enough.  I love playing piano don't get me wrong but it was really just a temporary fix to something that isn't going to go away until I graduate in 2016.  What is option one missing?  Well it's missing option two.

2.  Rely on Christ.

As much as it pains me to admit it, my relationship with Christ was lacking during this stretch.  I was so focused on school and school alone.  I wasn't in the Word and I wasn't talking with the Lord.  I was going to church but that was all I was doing.  Church would make me feel good on Sunday mornings and Monday nights (I attend the young adult church service led by the church I attend on Sundays) but that was it.  In one ear and out the other.  I was trying to do it all on my own.  SPOILER ALERT!  It didn't work.  I broke down.  How am I going to do this?  How am I going to graduate?  Looking back, I was foolish.  I can't do this on my own.  Last week at SOMA (the young adult church), we took a look at Matthew 14:25-32.

Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.  When the disciples saw him walking on the lake they were terrified.  "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.  But Jesus immediately said to them:  "Take courage?  It is I.  Don't be afraid."  "Lord, if it is you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord save me!"  Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.  "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"  And when they climbed into the boar the wind died down.  THen those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

We are all like Peter, we think we can take on life's challenges on our own.  And for a while we will be able to hold our own, but then a storm comes and things stop going our way.  We absolutely must fix our eyes on Christ.  I know that we may have times of doubt in the Lord's plan, I get that, but when we encounter those times of doubt we need to refocus.  Refocus on the One that knows the future, the One that knows His plans for you.  It's funny how things work out.  When our faith in Christ is tested one of two things will happen.  1.  Our faith in Christ will be strengthened.  2.  We lose faith in Christ and head in another direction.  We must must must must continue to seek the Lord, His guidance and continue to strengthen our faith.  I can't do this grad school thing on my own and I found out the hard way, BUT Christ and I can do it together.  WE can do it together.

We all need both options.  We need time to ourselves to do the things we love BUT we also need Christ.  Option one is a temporary fix, option two is a permanent fix.  If you ask me, it's a no brainer which option I'm taking.

Please continue to pray for me for focus and motivation in times of frustration.  Pray that I will continue to seek the Lord when I become frustrated, overwhelmed and all aspects of my life.  Thank you all for your support.  I apologize for not posting as often as I would like!

Brandon

Talk about cool...take 10 minutes and read this.

I sat down this morning with my usual bowl of Wheaties and glass of orange juice.  The Wheaties as usual did not have any milk on them.  I don't like wet cereal, call me weird, but I've always done it that way.  I love milk just not on breakfast cereal.  Anyway, all of that is beside the point.  I opened up my email and had nine or ten emails to read from yesterday and this morning.

I expected the typical emails from the University of Toledo about what is going on around campus and emails from the physical therapy program about volunteer opportunities and about various things we need to do as DPT students.  The emails I received were exactly what I anticipated...except one.  I hesitated to click on this particular email because it looked like this:

No subject in the subject line and from a sender that I didn't recognize; I didn't know what to expect.  I decided to open the email and see what it was all about.  If it was spam then I'd delete it, block the sender and be done with it, but this email wasn't spam.  This email was cool.  Here is what it said:

Hello! 

I hope this is not too creepy! I just wanted to thank you and share a word of encouragement. I just got wait listed from a DPT program and googled "DPT wait list" and your blog came up. And as I read I was SO thankful to see a fellow believer of unwavering faith. As a stranger you have encouraged me in ways you will never know. Our God is so good.  Thank you! I will pray for you as you start your DPT program. And I hope to see you on the other side of eternity!

My initial thought was how did this person find out who I was and how did she contact me?  I sat and thought about how she would have first of all found this blog by a simple Google search and secondly found a way to contact me.  So, I typed exactly what she said she did into Google and sure enough the fifth result was a link to my blog entry about being placed on the waiting list for DPT schools.  Question number one had been answered, but what about number two?  Then it hit me.  A couple of months ago, I added an "About Me" tab to this blog on which I talked about who I am and in brief, my journey to DPT school.  On the very last part of the page, I listed my email address just in case there was a rare occasion that anyone wanted to contact me about what I had to say.

I completely forgot that I had put my email address on the blog in part because no one had ever emailed me.  Well, there is a first time for everything and today was the day I received the first email about my blog.  

An email from someone I had never met, blew me away and absolutely made my day.  The Lord is using me to reach out to people in my local community, my immediate friends, family and people I have never met, let alone talked to.  Here was my reply this morning:

Hey!

This just made my day.  You have no idea.  When I initially set up my blog and put my contact information on there I didn't think anyone would contact me.  I actually forgot that I had put my email information on there in the first place.  Don't let you faith waver.  As a result of being wait listed, my faith only got stronger.  The Lord has a plan for you and your life.  He may be saying wait for you for DPT school or He may be saying no altogether.  You need to remain steadfast and trust the Lord's plan.  It may be difficult at times, don't get me wrong, but you WILL end up where God wants you to be.

Where did you apply for school?  Still out on the east coast?  Are you from out there originally?  I have family out in Ocean, New Jersey!

I would like to talk about the email you sent me in a blog entry.  Is that okay with you?  If not it's okay.  I won't use your name.  I just wanted to run it by you first before I went and started sharing about it.  I just think this is so awesome!

A great start to my day and it's only 10 AM.

Our Lord is so so good, don't ever lose sight of that.  If you need any information about DPT school, the application process or anything please let me know and I'd be glad to help!

Take care,

Brandon

I feel like sometimes as we as followers of Christ and even non-followers of Christ we may wonder, "How could the Lord possibly use me?".  This is a thought that at times I have had myself.  The reality of it is though, that no matter how close or how distance you may be from the Lord, your story matters.  No matter how good or how terrible your past my be, the Lord wants you to become closer to Him and He CAN use you to reach out to others.  The Lord is already standing there hugging you, He loves you, He is just waiting for you to hug Him back.  

Here for me, an opportunity to reach out to and help someone who I have never met.  I've said this already but this is so cool.  The Lord is using me in a way that I would have never expected and I am soaking up every minute of it.  So I encourage you to share any of my entries with people you know that may find them interesting, encouraging or just want to read about the life of a twenty something in grad school.  

I was given permission by the sender to use this email for a blog entry or else I wouldn't have shared this unique experience.  She also gave me permission to use her name, however I decided to refrain to ensure confidentiality.  

God is using me and He can use you!

Best,

Brandon

brandon.bowers@rockets.utoledo.edu

An Update Would Be Nice

Well, it's been over a month since I've updated everyone so I'll start off by apologizing.  The end of summer semester got really busy and I neglected to make time to even post a brief entry.  Sorry for that.  Anyway, summer semester flew by and now here I am laying on my bed at the conclusion of week one of fall semester.  I am certain that this semester will fly by even faster than the summer did.  The classes we are taking this fall are as follows:

Analysis of Movement
Clinical Pathophysiology II
Intro to Exam
Teaching and Learning
Foundations of Physical Therapy
Clinical Reasoning (Begins week 6)

It should be another fun and jam packed semester.  If you are ever in the Toledo area and want to visit, don't hesitate to let me know!  I will do my best to update every week to two weeks.  And don't forgot to check out the brand new #bowtietuesday page!

Best,

Brandon

The Home Stretch...well sort of

Week six of eight of the summer semester is in the rear view mirror.  I guess you could call it the "home stretch", of the summer at least.  One week of class and one week of finals stand between me and a brief "summer" at home.  I'll be at home in Hilliard, working at YMCA summer camp as a head counselor from August 2nd to August 13th.

As for school, everything still continues to go smoothly and I still don't have much of a life,  However, the hard work is paying off.  My apologies for the lack of entries the past couple of weeks, I've really been swamped with studying in preparation for exam after exam.

As always, thanks for your continual support and prayers.

Best,

Brandon

Simply a Scribe

It is so awesome to see God working in my life and the lives of others.  This morning the Lord put on my heart that I needed to repost an entry from back in February, entitled "Let Go and Let God."  I had a feeling that someone out there needed to hear what I had experienced a few months ago.

Within a couple hours I received two messages from individuals who had read the entry and how much they appreciated the post.  One thanked me for what I had to say, to which I quickly informed them that I just type what the Lord puts on my heart.  I'm simply a scribe here on Earth articulating His words to me.

I am so happy that He is able to work through me to impact the lives of others.

The Summer Sprint

The end of next week will mark the halfway point my first summer semester of physical therapy school.    One short week from today I will be home for a brief break before finishing out the final four weeks of the semester.  Sounds easy right?  Well, not exactly.  Before I get to return to the capital city, I've got two exams to take.

Clinical Pathophysiology and Gross Anatomy.  The former, a mouthful for most of you I'm sure, simply put, articulates how our bodies function at the cellular level and the latter is the course with cadavers.  Clinical Pathophys is this coming Tuesday and Anatomy is this Wednesday.

Prayers this week for focus, patience and productivity would be appreciated.  Thanks to everyone who regularly follows "The Road to DPT" and thanks to all of the first time readers of my blog is well.

I hope this isn't the last time you read an entry I post and I hope you continue on with me in my journey in academia and with the Lord to become, Brandon Bowers, Doctor of Physical Therapy.

Remember God's faithfulness in biblical history.
Remember God's faithfulness in your life.
Remember God's faithfulness at the cross.

The Lord hasn't failed me or you yet and He never will.

The Lord has made a difference in my life and He can make one in yours too, you just have to open the door.  

What's Going On?

Just wanted to give everyone a brief summary of where things are at with DPT school.  The first two weeks came and went faster than you can say Snuffaluffagus.  Our first exam was on June 20th (Thursday), I feel like it went pretty well.

Studying for exams in graduate school let alone doctoral school is ridiculous.  I had lunch with a close friend today and was telling her that studying for these exams is like studying for undergrad finals...all of the time.  Studying on steroids without a doubt.

I'll have a short break over the 4th of July, from July 3rd through July 6th.  I plan to spend my "mid semester" break (if you can even call eight weeks a semester) at home spending time with my family and friends.  I might need to practice palpating people for an exam on July 9th.  So if you want to be palpated and help me out that'd be great.

Until next time.

Have an awesome day.