Since October I have been feeling led to enrol in a Christian Counselling course so I sent for an information pack and read it and procrastinated. One of the reasons I have been procrastinating is that the enrolment form asks why I feel God is leading me to do this course and I haven’t had an answer. Until now. Last night I was discussing racism with my mother and she was reminiscing about a most beautiful family who had been at the kindergarten when Casper was there. I said that you had to be careful saying things like that around my husband and she assumed that I meant you had to be careful not to say things against them when I really meant that positive comments about people of other races would usually bring forth a racist tirade. This morning I finally understood. All my life I have had a heart for the hurting and lonely. Nearly all my childhood friendships had been the result of seeing someone alone and approaching them. These last, probably sixteen years, my heart for others has been largely buried under my own hurt as I lived with a man who hurt his own children and poured forth hate in various racist, sexist and probably any other ‘ist ways you can think of. I believed him when he said he was a Christian but now I can look at the past with some perspective his fruit shows otherwise.
So, on to my application. Since I can remember I have had a heart for hurting people and having recently become a single mother I feel that God wants to use these hurts to help others who are hurting. As a home schooling mother, I also feel that God is preparing me to support myself after my children graduate.
I don’t know if this is the sort of thing that the admissions staff are looking for but it’s the truth. In five years Mowgli will be 18 and I will no longer have a government payment to rely on and at that time I will need some way of supporting myself and the realisation that I’ve always been drawn to serving those who are hurting finally opened my eyes to why I keep being drawn to this course.