I passed!!!!

I just found out that I passed the NCLEX! Thanks to all you who were praying for me. Now little Michael will be able to go to college. This is super-exciting for me. The test that I dreaded for so long I passed with flying colors! 75 questions and the test was complete and I passed! Praise God! He led me to trust in Him and He was faithful. "Not might, not by strength, but by my Spirit, sayeth the Lord." Amen.

Free at Last!

Thank God Almighty, I've taken the NCLEX and am free from it's horrible tortuous grip at last! Wow, what a horrible test. (For those who aren't keeping up, the NCLEX is the national board certification test for nursing) The test gauges how you perform as you take it and responds with increasingly difficult or decreasingly easy questions. I didn't feel like I knew the answer to a single question on that test, so I'm assuming that I passed. hehe... The test shuts off when it determines what level of competency you're at. 75 is the minimum amount of questions you can have; 265 is the maximum amount. I had 75 questions. So I either really blew it or I blew it out of the water.

I had a lot of anxiety about it yesterday when I woke up. So I prayed to God about it. I was reminded about a passage in Philippians about giving up your anxieties to God and His peace guarding my heart or something like that... So I started reading at Chapter 3 (I couldn't remember that it was in chapter 4). Immediately I was convicted that I was relying on my own strength to pass this test. God calls us to rely on His strength in everything. He gets the glory, not me. Yes, we need to study, practice, etc... but in the end, it's God that builds the house (a reference to a psalm... 122?). After prayer I felt a lot of peace. This morning as I took the test, even when I didn't know any of the answers, I felt a huge amount of peace. Praise God!

I'll keep you posted on the outcome. But I think I passed.

Working again

Well, I finished my 2nd day at Alvarado as an "RN" yesterday. It's not actually different from two weeks ago except that I get to pull medications out of the pyxis machines (that's our local drug dispenser on the floor, kind of a like a vending machine ;). I've had 2 interesting patients to take care of as well. I can see myself growing as a nurse in areas of compassion and assessment as well as prioritization. This is very good, because these are all critical for me to have in my repertoire if I'm ever going to be a proficient nurse. Alvarado is treating me well. God has blessed my family immensely with this job.

In other health-related news, Shannon's contractions are 7-10 minutes apart!