Where Has The Years Gone?

Tonight is my 40th class Reunion from Linn Co. R-1 School.  I did not attend the last one, I think I was on call or working.  As I am getting older, I have also slowed down as far as working.  As a nurse I never planned on attending many social functions...I had to consider what my response time would be to get back to the hospital or the homes, did I have cell phone coverage or beeper signal?  See what I mean?  I noticed that I was working many hours and days a week and becoming more and more anti-social.  I now work as the school nurse at Linn Co. R-1 and this gives me more time to spend with my family, especially Danny.  Danny retired after over 39 1/2 years in December 2009. 

Danny and Sarita and Devil in winter of 1970
Danny and I were engaged to be married and the date was set for May 23rd 1970, just a week or two after I graduated.  Danny had come home from the Navy in January and finding a job was tough.  He went to work at Chicago and lived with his Uncle and worked at the Mars Candy Co.  We missed each other and I knew that I did not want to live in Chicago, being the small town farm girl that I was.  Danny was also raised on a farm and he wanted our children to be raised around their grandparents and in the rural community if at all possible.  He worked for awhile in KC but came back to Trenton to work until he found somewhere else...that was 39 1/2 years.
Danny and I fell in love the moment we met.  I was at a phone booth in Linneus and the guy that was with him knew me and asked me out.  I accepted and went out one night with him and the next night with Danny.    Danny tells me he remembered being with his mother waiting in the car out in front of the Purdin Mercantile and I went in the store with my hair up in giant rollers and shorts...I remember seeing him sitting there, gave him a smile and thinking, "He's cute."  We started dating that next Saturday night and both of us just clicked.  he got up the nerve to ask me out.  I had never been able to just be me with any other guy before him.
Thanks for letting me Ramble!
Needless to say, the last two years of high school was not a picnic for me.   I did go to college and took business  and marketing classes so I could be a investment banker or a market representative.  I loved it!   I never settled for any grades in college other than As.  After getting out of college I worked as an office manager in an Equipment Sales company and really enjoyed the challenges but   I then went into EMT classes so I could be a community volunteer for our small community ambulance.  One morning after being out on an ambulance run all night that ended up in the city, the ambulance driver dropped me off at the office.  I then went back to college to become a Registered Nurse.   The whole time I am asking God to guide me and things weren't making any sense because I still loved the business end of things.
I started working for Hedrick Medical Center the day after I graduated from nursing school.  I was so blessed that they noted my other skills and education and soon I was marketing the Home Health and Hospice Department,  I gave speeches and presentations to doctors and hosptial staff.  I even did Power Point presentations to the Chamber of Commerces.   I served on the management team and attended discharge planning for patients, traveled to KC and Columbia to work with doctors and market our services.  When I wasn't marketing I carried a full patient load of Home Health and Hospice patients.  I was given the opportunity to serve on the Health Midwest Ethnic Committee. God was pulling everything together for me.  My work consumed me for years and it hurt my family life...what I loved the most.  Then is when I truly came to know the Lord.  I had attended Sunday School every Sunday for 12 years as a child but I really did not know God.  I saw him as a punisher if I did something wrong.  Oh, how wrong I was!
I asked Him to fill me with His Spirit and began  working harder to please Him and getting to really know Him and His Word and thinking less of what I was getting out of the relationship with Him.  I turned my life over to The Lord and my whole life changed.   I now work a 6 hr day 5 days a week, live on a 90 acre farm, have cows and sheep.  I love to spin, weave and knit the wool from my sheep and the Lord blessed me with a surplus so I help provide fiber to other spinners that don't have their own wool.  I have found a peace and joy on this farm.   I have been so Blessed by God and know that the journey will never be over and loving every minute of it.  I also know that I am a sinner but Jesus Christ died on the Cross for me and he loves me and forgives me.
Thank you for letting me tell my story and I pray that if you don't know God, that you will ask him into your life.