It’s 2:48 PM on December 20, 2016. It says it’s 40 degrees out but feels like 35, and I would have to agree. I have a couple sips left of my rosemary honey latte as I look out this window for inspiration. The sun is already setting but hey, after tomorrow, the days will get longer until the 21st of June. On January 3rd, 2017, I will have applied for my PhD in Nursing. When my grandmother passed away in March, the Lord changed my heart in ways I could not have anticipated. I went from a self-proclaimed future pediatric nurse practitioner to simply longing to be at the bedside of those who are dying. I wrote my first research paper on cross-cultural conceptions of the “good death” and how that influences preferences for end-of-life care when I was in college, before I had a personal encounter; I couldn’t bear to limit our class discussion about death and dying to physician assisted suicide, so I sought the answers to my own questions. I gave a 30-minute presentation a few months later on a cross-cultural perspective on how emotions change over the lifespan; we talked a lot about emotional development throughout childhood, but I wanted to know more about how emotion-driven behavior changes when your days are numbered. So I sought the answers to my own questions. Since being in nursing school I have found that neither 30-page papers nor 30-minute presentations nor 30 moments with my patients could contain my curiosity. I never thought I’d be sitting here in my favorite corner of my favorite coffee shop looking towards new horizons. This is the corner where I studied long hours for the GRE and memorized what seemed like every bone and muscle in the body in order to get into nursing school. As I watch the recommendations roll in, this is the corner where I’m praying that the Lord would give me the strength and courage to run farther and faster than I ever thought I could. For me, getting a PhD has nothing to with earning praise or prestige in the eyes of man and everything to do with bringing glory to His name. He has placed on my heart a burning passion to use my intellect in the service of those like my grandmother. Let’s do this thing ☝🏼