I think every girl should get flowers everyday!

Today I am chilling.  Yes, you heard me, chilling.  I woke up this morning and for the first time since I started my PhD I didn’t have the anxiety of qualifying exams hanging over me.    A very strange sensation, because it seems like for the last three years I have been walking around with this worry right at the back of my mind.  It has in many ways been an Omni present worry.

Now, it isn’t the exams that are so much a worry, it is the fear of what those exams may tell you about yourself.  When you attempt something like a PhD I think there is always a little bit of you that believes that there is no way you will ever actually be capable of being a PhD.  For example, when I think about the PhDs in my life I think about how much I respect them, how much I am constantly learning from them, and how capable they always seem.  I guess it is just hard for me to ever picture myself being that way. 

Just prior to my oral exams I had a moment of intense anxiety and fear wash over me.  When you prepare for something like an oral exam it doesn’t take you very long to realize how much there is to know in life and how little you actually do know.  Time becomes your worst enemy.  There just doesn’t seem to be enough time in order to learn (or re-learn) all of the things that you feel like you need to know.  The realization of all the “I wish I had” moments start to become blazingly obvious.  I began to feel really overwhelmed by the thought I don’t think I can do this.

 Then God spoke to me in one of His most beautiful and precious forms of communication, through a friend.     The night before my exams I received this in a text message:

Wow.   I don’t know why, because I am sure I have read something very similar before, but this just hit me like a ton of bricks.  I mean it really slapped me straight in the face.  Probably because, as I am sure a majority of my friends already know, I have wasted a lot of my life defeating myself.  I bet I have spent days, if not weeks, telling myself all about how I am not capable of doing something.  I read this text message a few times, and then closed my eyes.  Then the lyrics of my all time favorite song sang by Travis Cottrell (I just LOVE HIM, like maybe too much…) In Christ Alone popped into my mind:

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.  No guilt in life, no fear in death, THIS IS THE POWER OF CHRIST IN ME.  From life’s first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny.  No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand. 

You always hear that: the power of Christ in me.  The.  Power.  Of CHRIST.  In me.

I guess I just never let that really sink in, I never have really thought about what that actually means.  It means that I am capable beyond measure.  I can do ANYTHING through the power of Christ, which is in little old me.  I AM Gideon, and David, and Joshua.  God had their backs; all He asked in return was for them to trust Him and His tactics for victory.  Which is exactly what He asked of me this week, to just trust Him.

We are always learning, whether it is mentally or spiritually, God is always developing our knowledge.  So often in scripture we see the importance of wisdom and a renewed clear mind being stressed.  I think what I have learned most from my experience this week is that mental and spiritual wisdom go hand in hand.  You can read, contemplate, and cram all you want but if you don’t take time to renew your mind and remind yourself who you are in Christ it won’t really matter.  It won’t take very long before you are completely overwhelmed and incapable of logical thought. 

Doubt and fear can take over our hearts so quickly in stressful situations.  Luckily God is always there calling us back, asking us to come and stand on the solid rock He is and believe in Him and His plan.  We may have Omni present worries, but luckily we also have an Omni present God.