My Dang GPA (an excerpt from her original blog post)
I used to think that I should praise God when good things happened, but now I am learning to praise God regardless of what’s happening at all.
Throughout college…scratch that, throughout my whole academic life until this point, I have maintained good grades. As for the last two years in particular, I 100% consider my GPA a miracle. On so many occasions I chose being with someone over studying, or was too broken down to chug out school work. By now I know my current academic standing must have the hand of a higher power in it. But now that it’s in serious jeopardy (again), I’m getting anxious.
See, there’s this one class. Over half of the grade is based on group work. I’ll just say that for one reason or another my group has been avoiding A’s. By a lot. It feels like I have a house, and there’s a very important guest coming over. I have kept the place spick and span for years in preparation, and now, just days before the guest arrives, someone else has just overturned a jar of pasta sauce on my white couch. It’s going to leave a stain, and my guest won’t know where it came from. They’ll blame me, right? And it’s my house, so why not? I own my academic record, but it seems I can’t control it as I would like.
One thing that people tell us is that 20 years from now, no one thinks about your GPA. Still, can it not have an impact on my life in the next crucial 9 months when I graduate from college?
I wonder why I feel the pressure to keep my house clean, metaphorically speaking. Who am I afraid of that’s going to come over, see the stains, and deny me a job, a promotion, or just plain look down on me? I don’t think I realize how easy it is to operate out of fear.
Can you imagine being free and joyful regardless of what is happening to you? I’m not talking about being an entirely one-dimensional person and never feeling sad, but I have to say being sad when something bad happens is terribly predictable. How about singing sincere praise when something bad happens, knowing with absolute certainty that something better is coming? That’s the kind of life I want to live. So praise God, whatever grade I get in this class. After all, no one will think about it when I get to heaven. Where in your life does fear have a hold? If you have read this far and feel so led, you should pray about where in your life you are living in fear and ask God to free you from it. He totally can.
*1 Peter 3:14-15
(Guest post by Elsie, a current UCLA student. Please visit her blog to read the entire post and check out her other amazing blog posts: https://youngbeacon.wordpress.com
