I’m not a great test taker. I am someone who experiences extreme test anxiety. I get super nervous during exams which causes me to go through MAJOR brain farts which results in me leaving 3/4 of my exam BLANK. A complete WASTELAND of BLANKS!! And no matter how long I stare at the question, hoping it’ll magically just make sense to me if I stare at it long enough, the answer just. doesn’t. come.
That kinda feels like my life right now. And honestly, this is something that hasn’t really stressed me out until this past weekend, when all the “I don’t knows” just accumulated and I realized just how much uncertainty exists in my life right now. Right now is normally about the time of the year when I start planning for my fall semester, like considering leadership in my organizations, considering my academic path, my career path, possible internships during the semester, etc. On top of that, I have a lot of uncertainties about my summer. This summer, I will be going to Shanghai as part of an internship abroad program that UT offers. It’s a great opportunity and I’m so thankful for it, but the thing is, I still don’t know what company I’ll be working at. How the program works is you get matched to a local company in Shanghai based on your resume and also what field you’re interested in. Because the program costed a HECKIN TON, I really wanted this to be something that would actually be useful and beneficial for my future career. So I guess right now, there’s just a lot of uncertainty surrounding what company I’ll get matched to, what company will actually accept me, and whether or not I’ll actually get an internship that will be helpful for me. The uncertainty of it all actually drove me to a point where I was several clicks away from withdrawing myself from the program.
Two nights ago when I was lying in bed, I was just thinking about all the things in my life that I don’t have answers for, and I became so frustrated. So I expressed myself in the way I knew best, writing it out. Here it is, word-for-word, in all it’s uncensored, unedited glory:
“God… do you know wut ur doing? CUZ I HECKIN DONT AND IM FUHREAKIN OUT CUZ THERES SO MANY BLANK SPACES TO FILL AND IVE ALREADY SKIPPED ALL THE QUESTIONS I DONT KNOW WHICH IS LIKE 3/4 OF THE TEST AND NOW IVE COME BACK TO THEM BUT I STILL DONT KNOW THE ANSWER TO ANY OF EM!! AND IT FEELS BAD!!!! AND IM FRUSTRATED!!”
(NOTE: In case you didn’t get it, the test refers to my life. I was making an analogy.)
Then, yesterday morning, I was reading Romans and I stumbled upon this verse:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” ROMANS 15:13
Right at the moment when I was screaming at God, “WHAT DO I WRITE IN THIS BLANK?!?” He gave me an oh-so-subtle but oh-so-definite, “Me.”
It was definitely not the answer I expected, but it was the answer I needed.
The awesome thing about the Christian life is that it’s unlike any exam we’ll ever have to take for a class. If we don’t know the answer, issok!! We can simply write God’s name in the blank, and we can trust that by His grace, we WILL pass. In fact, we’ll pass at the top of our class! :)
Moments like these are important reminders that YES! I DO have a God of HOPE! I DO have a God who desires to grant me JOY and PEACE. So even though my blanks are still left empty by the world’s standards, I DO have HOPE and I DO BELIEVE that God fills those blanks, turning my wasteland of an “exam” into a flourishing garden where His work can be done.
~jo