clep tests, sick students... God always cares

Today has been a very interesting day. I've really had to rely a lot on God's strength for all the challenges and worries that I've had.

I teach piano, and today I had a new kind of experience with piano teaching. My student all of a sudden started feeling sick halfway through her lesson. I really had no idea what to do except to end the lesson. Then I called her mom and let her lay down on the sofa. I prayed alot while I waited for her mom to show up. I felt really responsible, almost as if she had gotten sick because of me. I also wished that we had finished the lesson, since she only has lessons every other week and needs all the instruction she can get. But God calmed my heart, (and I pray, hers as well) and she was able to get home okay.

The other big (BIG) thing today was my Natural Sciences CLEP test. Here, too, I was met with problems. There were a lot of things about the test which made me nervous. For one thing, when the test finally started, the computer screen showed all of the words upside down! Even the mouse worked counter to the way it should be. The lady tried to fix it, but nothing would work. So finally she turned the computer screen upside down. Surprisingly, that worked okay!

So I started the test, trying not to spend too much time on each question like I've been told. But I found that almost all of the questions were asking about things that I really wasn't familiar about, or was only vaguely familiar with! I had studied long and hard for this test, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had studied things that were more general (like the makeup of a cell), and this was asking about very specific things (like what protozoa has x amount of organelles). I had thought that the test was going to be about more general stuff since it covers so many topics (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Physiology)! But no, they had to ask specific questions!

I started to hyperventilate because so many of the questions that I was looking at seemed like a maze of unknown words and ideas. But I pulled myself together, and closed my eyes. "Lord," I prayed, "This is Your test. I will rely on You. Help me to think clearly." I opened my eyes and took a deep breath. Then I looked back at the computer screen and determined to work the problem out. Each time I was faced with a hard question, I went through it slowly, trying to grasp the words that might give me a clue for the outcome. Unfortunately, this made it so that I only had 8 minutes at the end to go over all the questions I had marked because I wasn't sure about them. Boy, I hate racing against time. It's weird, though, my brain almost seems to work at a faster rate when I'm under pressure. But I certainly don't like it!

Finally, the time went out: 3....2......1, and there was nothing else I could do. I seriously was almost shaking. I still wasn't sure if I had made it, though I had been able to go over all of the questions I'd marked. It was with held breath that I clicked on "Continue to score". The score showed up on the screen: 62! I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Cedarville University (the college I want to go to next year) required a score of exactly 62 or higher. I had passed!

Immediately, I thanked God. He is so amazing, isn't he? To care about one insignificant CLEP test in one insignificant person's life... to care about me!

~Melody