Our life seems so busy all the time. Our family is always running, I seem to have an endless agenda, mostly due to the fact that I never say, “No, sorry, I just don’t have time for that right now.” My days are filled with work, appointments, practices, mowing the yard, maintenance around the house, dishes, laundry…. yes, I said dishes and laundry.
You see, my wife Becky has just finished her 2-year nursing degree and it’s been a long, tough road for her and our family. Becky has worked tirelessly, studying, reading, learning and still all-the-while, able to be a mother, wife, sister, student, cake-baker, volunteer and friend. It’s been amazing to watch her grow and transform, sometimes daily, from a mother to a student to a professional nurse and back again. She still holds all the titles she used to hold but soon she’ll hold another: RN.
This has been an opportunity for all of us to grow into areas we wouldn’t have dreamed of unless we had been pushed. I wouldn’t have thought I’d be sorting colors and whites, making sure uniforms were clean for softball games tomorrow, cooking caseroles and mopping floors. It’s a far cry from moving mountains of dirt and shaping the earth or paving roadways and installing pipe! But that’s what needed to happen, so I did it. Our girls picked up their end, too, cleaning rooms, folding clothes, taking out the trash and cleaning the bathroom. I have been so proud of how everyone in the family has stepped up and helped out.
As always, God was right there the whole time. He picked up His end, too. He worked in ways that I could never have imagined. Sometimes we put God up on a shelf like a trophy or we see Him as a supreme being who judges our sins and tells us how awful we are. But God is far more relational than that. Even though we were busy and didn’t always make God the center of what we were doing, God was in the middle of everything we were doing because he’s relational.
He would bless Becky’s tests and study time, allowing her to recall exactly what she needed. One example that comes to mind is a day when Becky was preparing to take a Hesi Exam (I don’t know why it’s called that, but it just is). She needed to pass this exam in order to complete her Nursing degree. Pass and move on to take your nursing boards, fail and you start the entire quarter all over….no pressure! She studied for hours that week but life continued to get in the way. There was always something distracting her or pulling her away from her studies. The morning she was going to take the test I asked her, “How do you feel about it?” In her normal morning cheerfulness [insert sarcasm], she said, “Eeh… I don’t think it’s gonna be very good. I just didn’t have enough time to study, and the more I learned the dumber I felt.” When she left that morning we said a little prayer together and out the door she went, but it didn’t look or sound like it was going to end well.
All morning I prayed for her asking God to bless the time she had spent studying and asking Him to open her mind and bless her thought process. “Lord, give her your wisdom and understanding. Open her mind and pour out your knowledge on her. Give her peace and strength — and please make it so I don’t have to pay for another year of nursing school. Amen.” (Hey, sometimes I sneak a little prayer in there for myself, too!)
The test is 150 questions and each question has a different score or value based on the difficulty of the question. The lowest passing score is 850. Anything below an 850 means you retake the entire quarter again. Above 850 means you have just qualified to complete the nursing program and move on to take your Nursing Board Exam. SHE SCORED EXACTLY 850! We were ecstatic! We were praising God and thanking Him, I was congratulating her and praising her for her accomplishment. It was a good day!
Afterwords Becky said, “I just prayed for God to give me what I deserved — no more, no less.” I think, as always, God gave her more than she deserved.
He always gives us more than we deserve. He always does His part. He always pours out more blessing than we ever deserve.
You see, we thought we did our part. We thought we stepped up our game and put forth more effort, when in reality all we did was trust God to provide what we needed all along — an 850. Did she study? Yes. Did we all do more to help out at home? Yes. But did God do more than he normally does? No… I don’t think so. We deserve so much less, but he always gives us so much more.
God, You deserve so much more than an 850 and I deserve so much less. I praise and worship you for being in relationship with me and with my family, for providing everything we need even when we don’t deserve it. Thank You for how You’ve blessed us.