Studying for comps completely took over my life for several weeks as I tried to cram in all kinds of theory, examples and authors’ names and dates they published important works. It was quite stressful, trying to hold basically everything I’d learned for my three core classes in my brain at once so I could write well about just about any random topic the question writers would pick. Saturday before Thanksgiving was the day! We all showed up much too early and others chatted; I, however, did my “warm-up,” I paced and listened to epic music. When we got to open our questions I had a terribly deflating moment as I realized I did not even know where to begin answering one of the questions. I prayed a lot and took my best shot, but when the results came around it was shown not good enough. So almost two weeks later I trudged through the ice and snow to get to the closed school because we’d worked it out to take the re-test no matter what since two of us and the professor who proctored could all walk to school. This time it was different, I was fairly confident in my answer, and I did indeed pass!
It was an interesting time, because I hold my smarts at a sinfully close place to my heart. Many know that in some regards I’d gladly be a perpetual student, and there’s really two reasons. One, I just like to learn stuff, even writing papers isn’t so bad cause all the research is enjoyable, deadlines for turning them in are a different matter however. But the second is because I like to get good grades, in high school I constantly checked to see that I got the highest grade, was still at the top of the class, when I went to DLI it was the same. So, the last semester and a half have been a good check for me – I haven’t gotten the highest grades, but I learned better in those classes. I’ve realized that Ecclesiastes is so true. Especially: Ecc 1:17-18; Ecc 4:4; Ecc 12:12 My identity is not in my grades, but in Christ and I’m training to do work that glorifies him. 2 Cor 5:17; 1 Cor 10:31