Mar 04 2010
Guidance Counselor
When I was growing up on the Iron Range in Minnesota, it was assumed kids would try to get a job in the mines or in support of the mines. Most students who went to college were encouraged to attend Saint Cloud State. For parents, Saint Cloud State wasn’t as fraught with danger as “moving to the Cities,” and for students it was well known as a party school.
If you were pursuing another course of action, you were pretty much on your own. In high school, I knew two things…I wanted to escape the Iron Range to see the world and I had no money to pay for my escape. My mom tells me one of my teachers looked at my test scores and told me to try for one of the service academies. The service academy would pay for my education and in return I would pay them back with years of service to my country.
My mom says once I was told this possibility, I never pursued anything else. I had no fall back plan. I prayed and worked and tested and interviewed and eventually went. Although my time at the academy and in the Army were difficult, I praise the Lord for His direction and provision.
The school my children attend has a very good guidance counselor. She sits down with rising freshman and begins to map out their course load for freshman year and beyond. She tries to gauge in which field their interest lies and the type of college or vocational school they wish to pursue after graduation.
Abby and I sat down with the guidance counselor last month to begin to map the future out. Dale, of course, had already mapped out her course load. With her father, some things (calculus, physics, etc.) are not optional. The counselor asked Abby what job she would like to do. For Abby, this answer changes on a random basis. (I want to be a teacher. I want to be an artist. I want to be an FBI agent. I want to be an actress. I want to be a reporter. I want to be a flutist….) The possibilities are endless, so we pray for direction.
During Josiah’s appointment with the guidance counselor, his English language testing scores and love of books focused him a bit more on pursuing a career in writing. This direction towards language arts does not, however, get him out of calculus and physics. (Dale has mapped out his course load as well.) The counselor asked him where he would like to go to university. (State College, Christian College, Private College… ) The possibilities are endless, so we pray for direction.
Josiah tells me of the students in his school who do not make an effort to turn in homework or study for tests. Who just bide their time until it is over and don’t care about or plan for a future. I talk to him about how God can give someone the ability to see beyond the here and now to the possibilities He has for them. It takes faith to pursue something difficult and beyond your sight, to walk into an opportunity only God can provide.
I walked in these steps of opportunity as a teenager without a fall back plan, but am finding it more difficult as a mother to do the same. I must fight my tendency to figure it all out for them, because some things, I know, are best figured out by yourself.
And some things are best figured out by the guy with the checkbook.
…even if the guy with the checkbook happens to now live in the dog house…
18 and OUT worked for me!
I believe you used a different expression when getting across to us what would happen when we turned 18. “Don’t let the screen door hit you in the butt,” was the adage I recall.
Gosh I never realized that Howard and my Dad had so much in common!
Here is some advice that was given to Mugs and she shared with me while we were stationed in Germany in 1991.
“Don’t Major in Minor things”
Coleman…I had forgotten that advice. Thanks for reminding me.
We are praying for you and your family.