The Unknown, Now Known (Eek!)

I can just imagine the problem:

2x+3=6

Solve for the unknown "x", which is what will happen to you in the next week.

OK, so algebraically we'd subtract three from both sides so you get the equation of 2x=3. Then dividing by two on both sides (to isolate x), you learn that x=1.5. Easy. What scares me is that unknown part, about what will happen to me in the next week! I don't think that I'd want to solve this problem!

Remember how last week my point was how Jesus is in the unknown, and how He's calling us to him (indirectly, to the unknown too)? Well, this week is a perfect example of why I am so glad that I don't know the future! Because if last week I knew what all what happen to me this week, well, er, I don't think I would want to go through this week!

OK, so first off my school is going really well. After two weeks of PreCalc Algebra I've really gotten in the groove, and have figured out what it takes to get good grades in this class. Going into the week, I thought that Tuesday would be the hard day as I had a doctor's appointment that would probably take up most all of the afternoon. AKA my prime time for completing loads of homework, which is due the next day.

Well, Tuesday didn't end up being that bad. What really hit me was when my Mom told me on Thursday morning that my grandpa had passed away during the night. Now he had been quite ill for some time; so I was half expecting him to die soon, but still that doesn't make going through the actual occurrence any easier. What is hard with this sort of thing--and I learned this last year when my grandmother died--is that while you try to put these emotional/family issues out of your mind and try to focus on college (which is what you need to do and demands all that you've got), well, still like it or not you can't bury these feelings.

So in addition to riding the emotional roller coaster that I was on, I also had school. Class went fine, and in our second period my professor even spent an awesome hour helping us review for our test, which was to be on Friday! I really appreciated that. After the review I realized that while I understood the test material pretty well, I still needed to do some substantial study.

Came home at lunch and started on my homework, which was about 40 problems sliced into two homework assignments of 20 problems each. The first homework took a while but I was able to get 100% on it (we submit our homework online) pretty easily; it was just figuring out compound interest. The second homework, however, was way more challenging for me. It was a bunch of story problems that required me to do a bunch of algebraic equation rearrangement (something I'm not perfect at), plus most every problem number had around four problems in it. So with each single problem (there's a lot of calculatory work!) taking 10-15 minutes each, times that by 4, times that by 20, well, I think you have the idea! I was just way swamped and overloaded as I endeavored my best to complete these assignments which were due on Friday (the next day) at 8am.

Not to mention that I hadn't even done any test study yet. When was I going to do that? My test grades are 80% of my overall class grade! And I really want to get a good grade in this class! Well, I did have about an hour and a half that I could study for my Friday test on Friday before the test would be administered at 10am. So that meant that I really needed to finish my homework on Thursday night...

I was way stressing out at this point. There was just way too much to do in way not enough time, even though I was doing my best and certainly not procrastinating. Once again, I prayed to God for wisdom, guidance and mathematical understanding. And I pressed on. Marvelously, by bedtime I had finished most all of the homework and gotten very good grades on both assignments. I was thrilled, and hit the sack in an instant!

Friday morning came and I did the best job I could to do test study, going over the practice test that my professor had generously made available to us students. By the time the test came, I felt like I had a good handle on the material and was just ready to take the test and get it over with. And what happened? For most all of the problems I felt very confident on. However, there were a few easy ones that my mind just totally drew a blank on...for the like of me I could not remember how to solve them (even though I had just practiced them an hour earlier). I never manged to figure out the answers, and as I finished the test and handed it in I really had no clue what grade I would get.

Not too long after I checked online to see if my professor had graded my test yet. He had! And I had earned a very respectable B+/A- (I'm not sure). That is seriously a miracle...I never expected that. It truly was one of God's miracles--a situation which I thought was possible to get good grades on both my homework and test in such a short amount of time (really, not enough time). I don't know how God did it, but I know He did. And that's what matters.

In conclusion, I'd like to make the point of how Jesus did know what was going to happen to me this week, and He still called me into it, promising to hold my hand the whole way. And He certainly held up His end of the bargain. In times like these I like to how God will never leave me or forsake me (Joshua 1:5) and that even though I don't understand everything now (like my grandpa's death) "in all things God works for the good of those who love him" (Romans 8:28).