My life verse for this stage of my life is "Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God's armor so that you may stand firm." Ephesians 6:10-11 NLT

Many times I've been asked how I went from being a Registered Nurse to a Software Engineer (Computer Programmer). So here is my story. I may not have always made the best choices, but “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28 NIV. Although there have been many times that I've not been sure where my path was leading me, I continued in my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ - my Saviour, King, and Friend - and He has never let me down.

I knew when I grew up that I wanted to become a nurse (there weren't too many opportunities available for women when I was making my decision) but I loved science and math and I knew I wanted to be in a helping profession, so I went to The Ohio State University and became an RN. I married shortly after graduation and had three wonderful children - boy, girl, boy. Mostly I was a stay-at-home mom just working as a nurse for three short periods to keep my fingers in a little. I loved being a mother and homemaker. I celebrated with my kids when they had snow days from school and was sad when summer vacation was over. Besides all the “normal” homemaking duties, I had a large garden every summer enjoying the fresh produce and canned or froze what we didn’t eat for the rest of the year. I ground my own whole wheat and soy bean flours and baked 8 loaves of whole grain bread every week. We had chickens which produced fresh eggs and provided chicken dinners after the kids and I butchered and dressed them. I froze what we didn’t eat fresh. Although I had a clothes dryer and used it in the winter, I loved the fresh smell of clothes that had dried on the clothes line.

I would have enjoyed that life indefinitely moving from child care to grandchild care, but I suddenly found myself as a "single-mom" caring for kids in 6th, 9th, and 12th grades and having mostly been a stay-at-home mom, I didn't have a lot of nursing experience to fall back on. I’d always wanted to build on my nursing degree, so I applied for scholarships and loans and attended the University of Michigan School of Public Health for two years and graduated with an MPH in Epidemiology. Then I discovered that there were no jobs in epidemiology in or near Ann Arbor that would use my skills and pay well. I didn’t want to uproot my kids so I worked at various nursing jobs and temporary word processing jobs as I continued to job hunt. With the help of a professor in the School of Public Heath I was hired as a temporary employee to help with a study of Periodontal disease in Amish people. I was the coordinator of three departments that were involved in the study. I did field work which consisted of drawing blood samples and administering questionnaires. I did laboratory testing on the samples that were collected and data entry of the results and I also collated the answers to the questionnaires. But the best part of the job was doing programming with a language I knew nothing of, but taught myself as I went along.

Now I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a computer programmer ideally with a job that would utilize my medical background. There started an endless procession of applying for jobs that would utilize these skills. But each time I was turned down as not having enough programming experience. I was taking classes at Washtenaw Community College one class a term while I continued working, so I wasn’t making fast progress toward a degree.

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