Confession: I am not the hard core dedicated student I was in middle and high school. There are times I get excited and really work diligently from my heart, but those times are a lot more rare and shorter lived. It makes me sad and frustrated when I don't have the desire, understanding, or motivation to learn more and make the top grades easily like I used to, but I have to remember that I have been through a lot over the years, and both my heart and mind are not the same. But this is good in ways, too.
That being said, after having the heaviest classload and busiest semester ever--thank goodness it was only half--I came home after having lived on the edge of exhaustion and constant anxiety for months, it was hard to adjust to suddenly being home all the time, no internship running me back and forth between classes and practices, and only a limited number of assignments for other classes to submit online. Then I realized just how dead I was. Sometimes you don't realize what you need til you are kind of forced into it. I needed a break. And I actually took it. Buuutt I probably took way too long.
I had an extra long summer break, as we all did, and I had so many great things I wanted to do. I had the time to do them! So many projects and fun things, studying for the GRE and getting that out of the way, a summer class starting in July.
I slept in, started over training with a new base building cycle after the normal outdoor season would've ended, now it was "real" summer. I spent time walking the dog, riding my bike, went to the gym when it opened, cooked some great meals, read articles and watched videos online that I had saved up for the past year or two (or three), started working for DoorDash and made some good money, but still that was really the only place I went. Mom and I were home all the time like normal summer, Dad was still working the whole time except one week vacation he took off to just be at home with us (we hadn't planned a beach trip anyways). I was relaxing and enjoying myself.
Time flew. "I've been home three months?" I would think to myself in disbelief at how fast it seemed to go, all here at home. I am just good at staying busy yet never feeling like I get things accomplished. There's always more to do.
Continuing on in this great and wonderful and relaxing summer, oh, the deadline for the GRE is in a few weeks, "I've studied a little, I'll do it next week." I went online to register, and the next open spot for a proctor was THE last day I could do it. That's God's mercy in my procrastination. I still felt unprepared going into it, but my goal was to make a score to get into the grad program. This is another change, mostly good, from grade school me. I do not have to be the best at everything, especially if it doesn't matter! All that matters is that I get a score good enough to get in, then nobody will ever care again. Even better, after taking the exam, I am glad I didn't waste time studying, because the material was not like what I had practiced at all, and I would've done probably just the same without studying. And I will never use that stuff again in my life. And I got the needed score. What I did learn from taking the GRE is that I will not take a job where I have to sit for hours in a cold room. Yes, this was my own basement, but I do not ever sit anywhere, especially cold places, for hours uncomfortably staring. I felt like a literal brick when I got up, a frozen brick.
Until the MBA program processed my GRE scores, reviewed my transcripts, and "Oh, you weren't a business major or minor with xyz classes; we need you to do these background module classes before you can register for the semester for anything with a prerequisite." Side note, you don't choose your classes in grad school; they do it for you. So long story short, it was so much to do in such a short amount of time, I was basically told that I wouldn't be able to complete it and maybe just take the year off and start next year. NO. CAN'T. I'm on scholarship, and I have to be enrolled. So here goes my summer's end.
Three classes, started July 23rd, first due July 30th. We are stopping there because my motto of "One day at a time" lives on. I went through some late nights, sleepless nights, days with no breaks except to run, prehab, eat, super-fast shower, and eventually go to bed, lots of praying. I've never done anything in accounting, so that was a challenge. It was due 8 a.m., and I finished it with a high passing grade the night before (morning of?) the due date at 1 a.m. Praise. The. Lord.
So what's better late than never?
All the things I have learned, been convicted of, changes I have wanted to make, finally doing some. God was with me through the easy days, too, but now was the test. Do what you have to do.
All of this, all my failures, repeatedly, make me so mad at myself for not being able to change, but I know this is because I can't on my own. God gives each person their own battles, but we don't have to hide them and be ashamed of them. Paul, one of the greatest examples of men we look to for his Biblical writings and guidance, said in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, "BUT He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." It is so freeing to know that though we fail, we can use even those for God's glory. Yet, Romans 6:1-2 reminds us, "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" More conviction later in James 4:17 says that it is not only what we do that can be sin, but what we don't do: "Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 5:16 on the same page also says to "Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
I'm guilty. I need God's grace every day to work toward my habitual sins, and I need his power to help me overcome them yet also use them as tools to help others through their battles. I need others to pray for me in ways that I can't think of for myself. We all do.
So after some breakdowns, praying for God to help me through this pressure like I have never been under before, keeping faith on the promises that He is with me, has a plan, will help me, and even if I don't understand, no matter what the outcome of my exam, He is good, I made it. But now there's more. However, I am more prepared and confident. I have to watch that I do not get lazy again, though, but a break was necessary. I took a couple nice, long naps since that exam.
Next was to read the next 4 chapters of Sport Law and Ethics, write two reflections, and take an exam. Undergrad done.
Straight into more MBA, this time Economics. One week. Let's go! I feel like I have learned a lot through this last struggle through seemingly impossible odds, but like I sang on the morning of both my exam and the hardest of summer workouts, "Right now I'm staring down a giant...I still believe, there's no heart You can't rescue, no war You can't win. No story so over it can't start again. No pain You won't use, no wall You won't break through. It might be too much for me but, there is no impossible with You."
None of this is to say "Look at what I did," but to say, "Look what dumb things I did but God gave me mercy because I do not deserve this life I have, yet He wakes me up with new hope each day."
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