Gratitude

I am so full of gratitude right now, I just want to cry.  (To tell the truth, I have been teary eyed since about 3 pm this afternoon!)  Here is my story:

To get in to graduate school there are so many hoops you have to jump through.  One of them is taking the GRE (aka graduate records exam, aka death test).  I took it today.  I have been studying for about 4 months, I took a prep class that the U offers, and have just been stressing about it in general. 

As I took the prep class, we would do practice tests every few weeks to gauge our progress.  I started out in the medium range and kept getting better...until about 3 weeks ago.  My scores on the practice exams started to tank!  It was really discouraging because I had been working my butt off to prepare.  Nothing I did seemed to make a difference.  Needless to say, I was super stressed about it.

Then on Tuesday I had a complete breakdown.  I was driving from school to work, ruminating about how stupid I was and bawling my eyeballs out.  I was worried that I wasn't doing what Heavenly Father wanted me to; was he trying to tell me something?  Were my lowered scores the result of a spiritually induced stupor of thought?  I decided I was going to go to the library in the basement of the music building and take one last practice test, just to see where I was at.

And that didn't happen.  I ran into one of my BFFs, Lindsay.  She saw how stressed I was and insisted that I give my self a break and grab some dinner with her and our other friend Erika before my night class started.  I reluctantly agreed.  We went to Noodles and Co. where I got some delicious, super healthy pasta.  I forced myself to just chill and not think about my impending doom.

Wednesday I studied a little bit, but had class and piano lessons to teach, so all I did was a quick review of all the basics.  But most importantly, I decided to fast.  I struggle with fasting.  For some reason it is just something I never think to do.  Wednesday was different though.  Through fasting and prayer, I was reminded of God's love for me, no matter what happened with this GRE thing.  That was super comforting, but I still wasn't sure if I was on the right path.

Wednesday night, my brother Cory gave me a blessing.  It was amazing.  It was exactly what I needed.  I am so SO grateful for the priesthood! I think sometimes I take it for granted, but it is the most amazing gift.  How amazing is it that we can receive blessings from our Heavenly Father through our fathers, husbands, brothers, neighbors, whenever we feel we need them?  It is such a beautiful manifestation of Heavenly Father's love for and mindfulness of each of us. 

Then I asked Mom and Dad if they would fast for me today, and they of course agreed.  (They are so supportive of me...yet another thing I am grateful for!)  I texted a handful of my friends and asked them to pray for me today, too.  With in 5 minutes I had heard back from ALL of them saying of course they would pray for me and send me happy thoughts.  And you know what?  That is amazing.

So then today I went in to take my test.  I was calm.  I was confident.  After all, Heavenly Father told me he was on my side.  I had done all I could academically to prepare and put in a lot of hard work.  The Holy  Ghost can recall all things to our memory after all.  And I had the extra support of my Savior Jesus Christ to make up for whatever I couldn't do.

The GRE is a computer test, so it scores as you go and tells you your score at the end.  There are two sections; the verbal section has antonyms, analogies, reading comprehension, and sentence completion questions.  The quantitative question is math- everything from geometry to algebra to word problems.  You are really restricted by time limits, so it is testing your ability to think quickly and logically as much as it is testing your knowledge.  You get a separate score out of 800 for each section, and the two are combined in an over all score (out of 1600).  Most grad schools require somewhere in the 900-1000 combined score range. 

I got to the end of the test and it asked if I wanted to view my scores or delete them.  I took a deep breath and clicked "view."  This is what I saw:

Verbal- 690
Quantitative- 700
Combined- 1390

WHAT?!?!  Two things shocked me about this.  It is about 150 points higher than my highest practice test score, and about 400 points higher than the last practice test I did.  Second, my math score was higher than my verbal score!  It had always been at least 100 points lower in practice.  I started crying with relief. 

I KNOW that this is a result of my Heavenly Fathers help.  I absolutely could not have done it with out him.  He is amazing.  He gives such care to each of his individual children.  Fasting works.  Prayers are answered in very real ways.  The priesthood is truly God's power on earth.  If we do all we can, God will make up the difference.  I am so humbled by this experience, and grateful for the knowledge I have gained.