Back to the Future

I am a little slow on the updates...sorry about that.

I started this post during Spring Break, but I never got around to finishing it.  It was good, too, but unfortunately, I had to delete most of it because it was no longer relevant to my situation here and now.

March was--how do I say this--frustrating.  "Love does not boast.  Love is not proud."  First of all, I'm not so great at the whole no boasting part.  I'm not really sure what constitutes "boasting?"  I talk about my family a lot, but I don't think that's boasting.  I also don't really understand how love and boasting are related in any way.  I guess it plays into the aspect of love that is not selfish and cares for other people rather than focusing on one's self.  I don't know.  I think I need to work a little bit harder on that part this month.

Now, onto pride.  Oh my goodness!  My pride was poked and prodded and deflated a few times this last month.  Like I said in a previous post, God seems to have more in mind for me than just getting me through the month focused on one aspect.  I thought getting rid of pride was going to be easy because, of course, I didn't think I was that prideful.  I was wrong!

Let's rewind back to February.  I took my first exam in Intro to Psych.  I actually failed.  54%.  I don't fail tests.  I've never failed a test before that.  I was pretty upset with myself for not taking it seriously, but Dr. Norman said we could retake the test later (this month).  So I wasn't too worried about it.  Then in March we took our second exam.  I actually studied (not much, but more than the first) and I only got a 67%.  Now this devastated me.  I was appalled.  I could not believe that I had gone through high school thinking I was smart when all along I was really dumb.  Prior to that fateful day, I had been praying that God would reveal to me aspects of my life that I hadn't surrendered to Him.  Welp, that's just what He did.  It was pointed out to me that maybe this was God's way of not only showing me aspects I hadn't given up, but also hurting my pride, which caused me to see that, yes, I actually am prideful.  I thought about it a bit more and I realized that I've always taken pride in my academics, in my grades.  I know I'm smart.  (I also kind of boast about this sometimes...)  Our exam was Wednesday, that night I figured there wasn't much I could do about it and God was an infinity times bigger than me, so I gave it to Him: my final grade, my academics (I mean, He is the one who gave me the brain capacity I have), and my worry.  I felt better about it, but I was still slightly upset.  On Friday I went into class contemplating withdrawal.  Norman started talking about a solution he had for the last exam.  He gave us a way to raise exam #2 15 percentage points.  So where I got a 67, I could raise my percentage to an 83.  Easy!  Essay questions from the chapters we had been tested on.  God definitely comes through for us.  I was so amazed.  God is so good!  He loves me, He cares about me.  He cares about my grades!  He cares that I care about my grades.  And guess what, because my pride was decapitated (best descriptor I could think of), I'm learning to rely more on God when it comes to classes and that essentially my grades are not as important to God as other things.  Oh yeah, I've also surrendered academics to God (as well as relationship status).  I know there are probably other things that I need to surrender, but I'm hesitant to pray for revelation because it turned out to bite me in the butt last time.

April: love is not rude
I can do this...with His help.