Thank God for Physics

Especially for "B" and "C"
Well...week one, down.
I'm a mediocre law student.
Grades are out.
Grades like this make me cringe.
In moments like this, I want to lose my cool, I want to quake, I want to throw my hands up and say "WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!" Or, at least that's my knee jerk reaction, but, tonight I am in a different place.
After about five minutes of "What am I doing here, and what am I doing wrong?" I got over it, because one of my undergrads came over and made me soup.
After a month of fighting to maintain physical strength and feeling half of myself, I feel like Courtney today.

What does Courtney feel like? She's grateful. For years, this young woman spent her time making the grade. A little girl with no ability to kick a soccer ball or climb a tree, I poured myself like water into academic pursuits.
The work I did paid off, 3.98 looked very nice on a college application, and it would've been better, it would've, if it hadn't been for Physics. I HATED Physics. Tonight, Physics is at the top of the list of things I thank God for.

Now, I'm sitting in law school, sometimes I study 10 hours a day, I try to eat 3 meals each day, I love undergrads, and 1L's and I very rarely miss a class, but I study wholly off of someone else's notes, and 3.98 doesn't know my name anymore.
My GPA has a 2 in front of it, and yet, I'm not dumb. I don't understand, but, I keep working hard. Passing the bar happens whether someone is at the top or the bottom of his/her class, and I've been fighting in law school just like I've always been fighting.


Days like this, I'm thankful for that "B" in Physics. The only one I ever saw in high school.
At 17 I went to college, the first semester, I did nothing, and I mean nothing, but school work. Sometimes, I ate three meals a week (yes, that was read correctly), and at 17 and 5 feet tall, I weighed 107 pounds. I slept adequate amounts, but saw no one, and ate nothing, at the end of the semester I could say two things: 1) Shingles was a brutally painful illness, and 2) I had a 4.0.

I never asked for help because I didn't want to burden people by asking them to carry my tray, so I ate bread, and other random things, and because I was and am a reasonably healthy eater, I tried my best to make those random things healthy.

Fast forward a couple years, and I was still making decent grades, mentoring, working in student leadership, etc, and it never got easier to see that "B", never.
Every time I got one, I quaked, I called myself every demeaning name I could think of, and then it still didn't feel any better.
Then, I came to work on a graduate level, first an MA in Government, and now a week into the fourth semester of law school. Tonight, I am thankful for that first "B", sweet, sweet Physics.

I tell my 1L's that their grades don't matter, and they don't. THEY DON'T.
Working as hard as I do, and overcoming all these crazy things, I'm just grateful I'm still here. I'll finish, and the orphans will be fought for. My GPA might very well have a 2 in front of it when I finish, but goodness gracious, WHO CARES?
I want to let the record show that as devastated as I am that my grades are not stellar, I have worked hard, and I know beyond any doubt that God is faithful.
He takes my willing heart, He loves it, and He makes something cool from it.
The 1L's know I love them, so do the undergrads, and so will the orphans.

So here I am, this little girl who can't kick a soccer ball, who loves her friends, her precious 1L little sisters, and sweet undergrads, more than she could express, and who thanks God in heaven that He loves her, despite a B in Physics, and mediocre grades in law school.

Tonight, tonight I proclaim that I am most grateful for the people who kick soccer balls in my stead, for the ones who see my life and proclaim "Joy is hers" Tonight, I am grateful for physics, and the letter "B", or "C", for they will, indeed, take a little blue eyed girl all the way to the broken orphans of the world.

God doesn't operate by our standards.
Yay.
Thank God for Physics, and that the Alphabet did not start and end with the letter "A."

Soccer Anyone?
Court