Moving Forward

I was recently cleaning out my gmail inbox (went from 3000 to 300 emails!) and discovered this.

"Dear Rachel,

I’m sorry to have to tell you that you did not pass OT 12 this semester. As I think you already suspected, your final exam really bombed. Nathan and I worked and reworked all of the math for your various assignments, but we were unable to bring up your average to a passing grade.

What this will mean for you is that you’ll need to retake OT 12 at some point—most likely next year.

I’m sorry about this, but it does happen. I hope that you won’t be too discouraged, and that, in the end, spending some additional time with the Old Testament will be a good thing for you.

Stephen Chapman"

I received this email a year ago today. It was the first of multiple emails that told me of my academic stumblings at Duke Divinity that spring. While I knew that my grades had not been excellent in that class, and I had kind of been praying for a miracle, it still came as a shock that I had completely bombed the class, especially the final. It was even more of a knife in the stomach to find that I had also not received a passing grade in my CH14 class. For a few hours I thought my Div school career was over, and that I would have to return to Winchester a failure. It was heart-wrenching, and I remember doing a lot of crying. I was ashamed, I'd never out-right failed a class before, teacher's kids just don't do that.

That email turned my life upside down. But what I didn't realize was that it had already been turning upside down very slowly. Faltering relationships, lack of direction in my call, and a lack of recovery from previous school-burnout was preventing me from giving school my full attention, and my grades suffered horribly from it. I didn't want to be in school, but I knew it was where I was supposed to be.

It was a very painful time in my life.

But I look back now and realize that sometimes, the only way to be built up, is to be torn down first.

Over the past few weeks, I've had quite a few first years tell me how impressed they are that I was able to push forward. While ashamed to admit my failings to those that I know, I somehow had no problem telling it to complete strangers that I had just met. I've been very open with the first year class about the fact that I was re-taking CH14 with them, more open than I have been with people that I've known much longer.

But my reasoning behind why that is isn't why I'm writing this.

The comments from my peers in the first year class have intrigued me, because what else would I have done? Are they thinking that if it had been them, they would have just given up? Seen that as not following God's call and walked away? I don't know, but I know that I didn't know what else to do with my life, but continue on the path that I was already on, no matter how much longer it took me. Duke and Durham was where I was supposed to be.

Looking back, it's been quite a year. But I can see where I've grown. I know that I can't do it alone, and while I'm still learning how to ask for help, I can say that I've been working on my pride. Instead of being stubbornly proud to do everything myself, I can take pride in the fact that I've improved my grades with the help of the writing center and my peers. I've gone back on medication to treat my ADD. Talk about taking my pride down a couple of notches.

But I'm a better person for it. I no longer want to just "get by." I want to succeed. I want to get As on my papers, and I'm disappointed when I don't, rather than just accepting the grade that I got. I might still sing "C is for clergy, that's good enough for me" to my peers, but in reality, I want more than that. I don't want to hide amongst my classmates anymore, as tempting and as safe as it feels, I know that I need to stand out. Want to stand out.

While discernment hasn't been easy, I've been lifted up and affirmed in my call by my church and my family. It was probably the best Christmas break I've ever had. The only sad thing was that my parents didn't buy one of those ridiculous giant bows from the Lexus commercials to put on my car. Which is a shame because we probably could have got it on clearance since we bought the car after Christmas. But I got to preach at my home church, after having been unanimously approved by my Charge Conference the previous month to go before my District Board for certification for ordained ministry. I love how much Braddock Street supports me, and how Jim and Sara try to involve me in worship as much as possible when I'm home. I've wanted to preach there for years, and really hope I get to do it again. My grandparents also asked to pay my tuition. Woah. And not in a "well we can afford it and you're the only grandkid, and the grandkitties already all have their PhD.s in napping, so they won't be jealous" but in a "we feel that God is calling us to do this so that you can fulfill God's call in your life and that this is our way to serve God." Big woah. God has given me reasons to want to succeed and to want to follow God's call.

I don't have all the answers. I'm still trying to figure stuff out, but I'm beginning to like what I see and I'm learning to love myself for who I am and not for who I want people to see me as. I knew that coming to Duke would transform me, and I was scared of it, because I liked who I was, and didn't want to stop being her. So instead that change was forced on me, but now that it's started to happen, I've realized that it's not so bad after all. Parts of who I used to be are still there, but there are other parts that are new, parts that are even better than what I was before. I could have never have walked away from Duke because then I would have been running away from the transformation that deep down, I knew had to take place.

I'm not sure who I am yet, but I know I'm damn proud to be her, rather than the girl I was last year. And at this point, I think that's good enough.