Milestones

So almost two weeks ago it was time to celebrate.

Yes, it was a birthday, but due to travel schedules and life, the birthday party was later in the week or was it?  Ash Wednesday, my birthday, was full of presents as was the week.


So...first off, work.  I am required to obtain my certified flight paramedic credential.  I have more than a year to complete it, but it is done already.  I worried when I was told that a small envelope had arrived for me at home the first day I had left for my most recent conference.

A small envelope?  A small envelope is the same thing as college...thanks, but no.  A small means a letter without patches and pins and such, i.e. a "thank you for attempting to pass the test, but your knowledge base is what we call the small size of tiny" letter.  Instead it was a breakdown of my scores with the magic word - passed - on it.  How in the world did this happen?

I'm not sure, but Hallelujah!

Of course if I am being religious I have to note a gift I received as well.  I carry with me a 9/11 rosary when I work.  It is one of those things you do to both remember the past, as well as your own, and an item that provides me hope and determination for the future.  Recently my parish priest joined several other Anglican Ordinariate priests in a pilgrimage to Rome.  My darling girl decided that perhaps our parish priest, Father Timothy, might have the opportunity to have my rosary blessed by Pope Francis.  It was.  To think, the item in which I find my strength, that lies in my breast pocket when I work to ease the suffering of the ill and the injured was blessed by the successor to St. Peter I feel more energized than ever.

Pope Francis has called on us to serve those in need and I always thought I had, but now I find myself wanting to do more...to try more...to anything to succeed.

My birthday came and went without much fanfare - again work and life did not so much get in the way as make it a non-priority - but the milestone birthday was marked by both a personal and professional success that I am not sure I earned.  Even passing the FP-C test I feel was ordered for me as I know I still have so much to learn.  How then can I have had this success laid at my feet?  It still amazes me on so many levels.

However, the next step is I guess the one that matters.  Milestones can show us where we have been, and they may be markers for the future, but only if we enjoy the recent view long enough to start the journey towards the next one.