Grace Over Perfection

         

           I graduated high school as valedictorian. Going into college, I knew it was going to be a lot harder than high school was for me; I was going to have to study a lot more, work a lot harder, and spend a lot more time on my schoolwork, but I still thought it wouldn’t be that hard for me to maintain all As, at least my first year when I was taking more gen-eds than major classes. But, after taking my first biology test my mindset changed. The average grade in the class on that exam was below a 60%. People told me to be prepared because you will inevitably fail something throughout your four years of college. I was prepared to struggle, but I wasn’t expecting to actually fail my first ever college exam.

            Needless to say, that professor continued to kick the classes’ butts, mine included. I started to lose hope in myself and began to feel like a failure. Was I not smart enough? If I’m struggling in this 100-level biology class, then how will I be able to get my degree in biology? Thoughts like those continued to go through my mind the whole semester. By the end of it, I began to just be frustrated. Frustrated that this professor obviously didn’t care that we were all still struggling so hard and frustrated in myself for not being able to do “well” in that class.

            I was reading the book “Uninvited” by Lisa TerKeurst (which I highly recommend), and it really helped me change my mindset. One of the chapters was talking about feeling bad about yourself when you aren’t succeeding, or at least not succeeding in your own eyes. She was talking about her own daughter who was having a similar situation to mine in college. Her advice was to stop worrying about something that will seem so small in the future and to just focus on trusting God with it. Your small failures won’t hinder God from using you the way He wants to, and that’s really all that matters in life.

Often times, we get so caught up in worrying about minute things that we really have no control over. I find myself so caught up in my grades, sometimes to the point that I can’t sleep because I’m so stressed about them being perfect even though I tried my hardest and did all that I could. At the end of the day, God is what matters, and He will love you regardless of whether you have a 4.0 GPA or not. He will be able to use you to spread His love and word no matter where you go in life, no matter what job you get, and no matter your successes and failures. He knows we are imperfect, yet He still chooses to love us and spread Grace over us every day, and for that I am thankful. Instead of focusing on the parts of our lives that seem imperfect and don’t live up to the expectations we have for ourselves, we need to be grateful and meditate on the fact that we have a loving Father who still loves us so deeply despite those imperfections.

“If you wake up feeling fragile, remember that God is not. And then trust Him to be everything you need today.” -John Piper