Wait long enough

I put off my required Statistics Class for college graduation until the last possible semester. (Unfortunately, one of my character flaws has me often postponing things I need to do but don’t want to do. But, I digress.)

When I began the class, I was clearly reminded why I had chosen to delay the requirement. It was going to take all I had to pass this class. My lack of “left brain” became painfully obvious.

I joined a study group, which helped as much as anything could help my right brain in a left brain activity. But when the midterm came, I went into it feeling woefully ill prepared—not for lack of trying, but my brain just simply couldn’t wrap itself around the statistics.

I wasn’t in BYU’s testing center very long. I did what I could but there was a lot of guessing involved on the multiple choice “fill-in-the-bubble” test. When I handed it to the girl behind the counter, I wasn’t overly optimistic. And I still remember the almost symphonic ticking as the scanner let the world know every time my answer didn’t match up with the answer. It wasn’t pretty and I left before the orchestral performance of the scanner ended.

I walked out of the testing center and never walked back into the statistics class. I knew I had done horribly on the exam and I made the decision, almost immediately, that I would just focus on my other classes and retake statistics summer term.

But, this was no small decision. By quitting the class and taking it the next term, I was postponing my graduation...a fairly significant adjustment to my life plan at the time.

A few weeks before the end of the semester, I ran into one of the guys from my study group. He asked where I had been (certainly glad he wasn’t responsible for my whereabouts…why hasn’t he tried to track me down sooner?) and I explained my horrible experience with the midterm and that I had clearly failed and decided to just retake the class next term.

His response is still engraved on my memory. “We all failed the midterm. It got graded on a curve and we’re all passing the class. You could have passed the class!”

I still get a bit of a pit in my stomach whenever I relive that short conversation. There I was...so close to the end. And yet, I had delayed my graduation because I assumed I knew how my experience was going to turn out.
I didn’t know there was going to be a different ending to the story.
Frankly, I didn’t even consider there could be a different ending.
But, God surely knew.
And I never even talked to Him about it.
And I certainly didn't wait long enough to find out for myself.

Have the patience to wait...long enough.

Lead me in thy truth, and teach me:
for thou art the God of my salvation;
on thee do I wait all the day.
Psalms 25:5