Godwinks?

Have you ever heard the term "Godwink"? It's written about in a series of book by SQuire Rushnell (yes the Q is supposed to be capitalized!)

I wanted to include this in my last post but I felt like I was chasing metaphorical rabbits and stopped myself. This is the definition of a Godwink by the author, taken from his website www.whengodwinks.com:
WHAT'S A GODWINK?
A godwink is what some people would call a coincidence, an answered prayer, or simply an experience where you'd say, "Wow, what are the odds of that!"

What do godwinks mean? Think about when you were a kid and someone you loved gave you a little wink across the dining room table...Mom or Dad or Grandma. You didn't say "What do you mean by that?" You knew. It meant: "Hey kid, I'm thinking about you right now." That's what a godwink is too: a message of reassurance from above, directly to you, out of six billion people on the planet, saying "Hey kid...I'm thinking of you! Keep the faith! You're never alone."

Basically it means that nothing is ever a coincidence, which is a belief that I agree with. You may disagree and that's fine too. I wanted to share a few of these that have happened in my life.

It's interesting that even though I'm only 24 I look back on the past 3 and a half years and see what drastic changes have taken place.

In the town where I grew up no one ever leaves, you're born there, you die there and that is that. I always knew I wanted to leave. Not necessarily because I thought I was better than everyone else but more because I needed to prove to myself that I could do anything I set my mind to.

That attitude started in 9th grade when all of my friends decided to side with another girl instead of me and almost overnight I was virtually friendless. When you go to a school with a graduating class of 60 there aren't a lot of choices for friends. So I did something I thought I could never do, I auditioned for the school play and got the part and met my best friend April. Through theater I was able to discover who I was and who I could be. Through losing many close "friends" I gained one wonderful, meaningful friendship that keeps on keepin' on from 500 miles away.

I mentioned in my previous post that I attended community college before going to a 4 year school. This wasn't really my decision but I'm glad I listened to my moms advice on this one. I had recieved offers to join Phi Theta Kappa for every semester but I really didn't want to fork out the $75 registration fee which seems ridiculous now but when I worked at JC Penney's and made $5/hour $75 was a lot of money! So once again my wonderful mom took over and made me register. Thankfully she did because when I decided to transfer to Maryville that membership saved me $18,000 each year for the 3 years I was there. Now that's a good investment! I had no idea the school offered this scholarship until I was accepted and went over my financial aid packet with my advisor. So if by chance you're reading this and in community college with the option to join PTK, take it!

Maryville is a small town, it's large compared to where I was raised but people here consider it to be a speck on the map. So what are the odds I would meet someone who grew up here before I'd even visited the school? When serving as a summer missionary in Louisville, KY my roommate was a student who attended Boyce College, an undergrad school associated with the Seminary in Louisville. Her friend Mary came over for dinner one night after I had just learned about the interpreting program and we were chatting about our backgrounds and it turns out she had grown up in Maryville and lived there until moving to Kentucky for college. I took this as a sign that I was going in the right direction and it may sound silly but that influenced me to take a leap of faith and move to Tennessee.

I never thought I would be an interpreter, I had met one Deaf individual in my entire life, my friends neighbor. This was until high school when I met 2 more while I was taking an intro to ASL class. I didn't know anyone who was an interpreter, I really don't even know that I knew it was a profession. After transferring to Maryville I began dating my fella, it turns out he's from an interpreter breeding family haha. He has uncles, aunts, and cousins who are interpreters and missionaries to the Deaf in other countries. Now he is learning the language, it looks like he wasn't going to be able to escape it!

The summer of 2009 I was searching for interpreting internships in Chicago so I could be near my beau (he has since graduated and moved to Tennessee to be near me) I had a hard time finding anything. He talked to his church people and they set me up with an internship...but not with interpreting. I was able to have a great opportunity to do a lighting, sound, graphic, and video internship with a branch of Willow Creek Community Church. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, this church is huuuuuge. Like an verage of 21,000 people attending weekly services huge. I'm not sure how this qualifies as a godwink but it was a really cool experience that I would never have had otherwise.

I finally g found an interpreting internship in Chicago for the summer of '10 I was setting up all of the logistics and had even gone up to visit the building, do an interview, and present my senior thesis. Approximately 1 month before going to Chicago I recieved an e-mail stating that they no longer had an internship available for me (apparently the guy never asked his boss if he could train someone). So here I was planning to graduate in 4 months with the rug pulled out from under me. Thankfully I was accepted to do my internship at a local church here in Knoxville. That in itself has been a wonderful experience, I've met many great people both Deaf and Hearing and I really feel like at this point in my life this is where I'm supposed to be. I think if I had gone to Chicago I would be miserable, I'm not a city girl. I need mountains, rivers, backroads, and wildflowers. I think God knew I would be of better use here than in Chicago and I'm glad.

That is all I can think of for now, my brain is rebelling against me and is requesting to rest now. I suppose that's okay :)

Goodnight!