Sunset of a Career Part III

 
In 1982 I was prepared to take the professional licensing exams.  At that time there was a two-day written exam given in June and a  one-day design Exam given in December.  I had passed the written exam.  The design exam required the candidate to produce a set of design drawings for a specific building type within a 12 hour time frame.  And you thought that was a concept new to cake challenges on the Food Network.  Every architectural candidate in the U.S. takes the exam on the same day in one of numerous locations around the country.  The site of my exam was in Stillwater, Oklahoma at Oklahoma State University.  The exam commenced at 8:00 a.m.  We were required to produce a floor plan, site plan, two exterior elevations and a section cut through the building, all within the 12 hour time frame.  Are we having fun yet?  It was almost 11:00 a.m. and I felt like I was still staring at a blank sheet of paper.  Things were not going well.  I decided to step out of the studio for a few minutes and gather my thoughts.
This architecture thing is all I had ever wanted to do and it was slipping away from me.  I finally did what I should have done all along.  I prayed.  I told the Lord that if it was not His plan for my life for me to be an architect, then I was willing to return to Tulsa and seek out His will for my life.  If, in fact, He did want me to be an architect, then we had about 9 hours to get it done.  I returned to my table and started sketching a few ideas.  Within about a half hour things began to fall into place.  A couple of hours later the first floor plan was done.  I finished the exam with two hours to spare and I had time to add landscaping, people, and other "eye candy" to my design documents.  When I left the exam studio that day I didn't need to wait three months for the results to come in the mail.  I KNEW that I had passed and that was confirmed in March of 1983 when my certificate of license arrived in the mail.   It was if God had just said, "All you had to do was ask."  I think God has a plan for all of us and all we need to do is ask Him what it is.  It may not always coincide with our personal desires, but it will always be in our best interest.  Over the years I have received confirmation that not only is it God's will that I became an architect, but that I can serve Him within my profession...but that's a story for another day...to be continued.