How Blessed I Am

Dear friends, I have returned to my blog. I am at last done with my semester, and I'd like to tell you how it all ended. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the story.

I last left off feeling completely overwhelmed by all that I had left to do to finish my classes. I had a paper due Wednesday and a final due Thursday, and I really didn't know how I was going to do it. Then on Friday night, I got home from work, and waiting on my kitchen table was a letter from the Fourth District Court, summoning me to jury duty for a one-day trial ON THURSDAY. If I had been feeling like, "What am I going to do?" before, it was nothing compared to what I felt when I opened that letter. But then I just laughed, because, what else could I do? I called my boss to tell her, and she groaned and laughed with me, and then I emailed my professor whose final was due on Thursday to ask him if there was any way I could take it that evening, even though he announced that it was due at 5:00.

The next morning I received an email from him that commiserated with me the poor timing of this summons and lamented the fact that there was no way he could extend the final for me. But he offered the following words of encouragement, "Look at your grades in the class. You are in great shape! You could take the final and not do that well and still get a great grade in the class." He also told me that he had taken a sneak peek at my paper (the one I labored over during Thanksgiving), and he thought it was "phenomenal." In fact, he told me I was going to get a 98% on it. "So," he said, "take the final early, get it off your plate, and then go send a bad guy to jail."

I really could not believe my eyes as I read his message. I never, ever expected such praise. But I decided to take his advice, so I put away my lit review notes and got out my notes to study for his final. I spent a few hours on that and then took it later Saturday evening. Turns out it was incredibly easy, so I'm glad I didn't wait until Thursday and stress about it the whole week!

The downside to taking my final on Saturday was that I spent no time on my lit review. As nice as it was to have only one assignment left, it was a very formidable task. I'd done a rough draft, but I didn't feel like I could really build on it. I didn't have good enough research to go very in-depth into my topic. But on Monday, I found an article that helped me reorganize my whole outline, so I was able to write five of the eight pages before finally going to bed around 1:30. Thankfully my boss left me have Tuesday afternoon off to finish my paper, so I was able to wrap it up and turn it in that evening at 10:17 p.m.

I felt surprisingly calm when I hit the "submit" button. I'd always envisioned me jumping up and down, screaming, running down the street, kissing everyone I saw, etc, but I just emailed my parents to tell them I was done, and fell to my knees to say a prayer of thanks. Emotion flooded over me, and I wept with gratitude as I thought of all the love and support I'd been given by my friends, my family, and my Heavenly Father. This semester was so difficult, and I felt so stressed and overwhelmed and so many times thought I simply couldn't cut it. But I know through many prayers from me and especially from others on my behalf, I was blessed time and again to have a successful start to my graduate school experience. Thank you to all of you who supported me.