I'm almost positive that I didn't do well on my Chem Exam... it will be my first non-A grade that I've been given so far. I'm pretty sure I need to get used to this feeling. I don't know where I got the idea that I must maintain straight A's. No one ever said that to me. I've been thinking about it constantly - borderline obsessing in my head over the problems that I should have gotten right but got nervous and second-guessed my gut feelings. Over-analyzing. I do it.
How do you let go of your mistakes? Mine stick like ticks. I do think that it's a good thing that I have such high standards - if I'm going to be in school (with the price tag that comes with it) then I want to do it to the absolute best of my ability. It's hard to accept that my performance yesterday was my best. Sure, once I realized that a polyatomic ion counted as two particles when the subscript followed the parentheses, I now have the correct answer. But that was after the fact. I did do my best, I can't be weighed down by poor performance if that is all I had to give. It would be such a relief to imagine that grades don't matter, but in the context of this school where the nursing program is highly competitive and scholarships are as elusive and selective as the northern lights, I really do need to maintain the best of my ability.
For my personality, I'm incredibly conflicted in this. I am innately lazy, and yet, paradoxically, I am a perfectionist. I want the easy road and the utmost finest results. Also, I am a team player - I love when everyone can move forward as a successful unit. Yet if that means that I must diminish and slow down to match the median of the group's pace or performance, I tend to break free and operate on my own to achieve personal success. I don't know if there's any other way to do this school thing. I'm scared to consider and invite kingdom dynamics into my school life - I know I need to, and it terrifies me.
Yesterday I could have spent my morning studying by myself and cramming the last details of neutralization into my melon, but instead I felt like God told me to just hang out in the lounge outside of the classroom and help the people there who were frantically struggling to understand concepts that I could help them with. So I chose to be encouraging and give them a boost up by explaining the sticky problems. Did that hour spent away from my own study time cost me? Perhaps. Did I make the right choice? I don't know. What I do know is that I can see the dynamics of Jesus and his ways rising up around me. And it makes me nervous. His way is an upside down kingdom, where the last are going to be first and the things of this world will fade away. It's not an esoteric theology either - this isn't something that I can coo about in the back of my head, imagining how nice it will be when "someday our world will change" - it's changing now! Everywhere I look I see both the crumbling of our world and the rise of something new. And as someone who is captivated by Jesus and at times tries to look like him and follow him, I'm actually invited into this newness. Like I said, I'm nervous to surrender my schooling to Jesus - to let him direct my time management (ex. sacrificing study time for something else he has in mind), to let him define success (ex. surrendering my gpa), and to give him total permission to interrupt my day with directions to talk to someone or to tarnish my perfect attendance record by skipping class to be a friend to someone who needs one. I know he wants me to reject the motivators of fear or control or pride take my hand and pull me into their suffocating and destructive arms, but somehow those things feel "safer" than faith and surrender and humility.
But this morning as I lay in bed watching out my window as that ball of red fire started to rise out of the lake, I realized that it had been a loooong time since I've read the bible. So I picked it up and started looking for the book of Hezekiah. Yep. No joke. 9 months of bible school and I'm looking for a book in the bible that doesn't exist. Huh. After a fruitless search for what I thought was a minor prophet, I ended up reading Philippians and Colossians for a bit. Here's what stuck out:
"He was supreme in the beginning and - leading the resurrection parade - he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe - people and things, animals and atoms - get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross."
... He is so "roomy"... man, I love that. I needed that.
Yesterday morning, I was up before the sun and was busying myself with breakfast and such in the kitchen when the first light of morning started to light up the outside world. I was surprised to see a fresh blanket of sparkling white snow over everything - our first snowfall! I was thrilled! And then I was even more thrilled over the fact that I was thrilled. See, although autumn is the most beautiful time of year in MN, it also fills me with panic as the reality that freezing temperatures, dark dark nights, and gloomy skies are headed my way. Winter turns into this looming, fierce giant that I can do nothing but cower from. And yet, time and time again, the first snow falls and I remember that I actually LOVE WINTER!!! How do I always forget this? It's beautiful and peaceful and full of majesty. I love wearing hats and cross country skiing and eating lots of soup with friends who finally have time to hang out because the weather has slowed us all down.
And that's just how I feel about Jesus' way of living... from a distance, the idea of surrendering to him and letting him call me into a different way of living is straight up terrifying. And as soon as I take the plunge, I am filled with joy. I forget how it feels to trust him. How it feels to be surrounded by his grace. How it feels to give him my burdens and feel his love overflow my empty cup.
Oh. He is infinitely good.
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