Risking Failure

Yesterday I completed the final statistics assignment.  Within hours I'd received the mark back - 100%.  That made me smile.  Math has never been my "thing" but the grades are rolling in with smile inducing numbers in the statistics course.

I wish I could say the same thing for my anatomy course, but I just can't.  The amount of information is overwhelming, and I'd guess that the grade is going to be far less (by maybe 2 letter grades, or 20%, however you prefer) than what I'd anticipated it would be at the beginning of the summer when I began this crazy adventure of completing a course normally taught in a classroom over the space of eight months by myself in the space of two months.

And that grade reality has weighed heavily on my mind.  I even failed and had to repeat one quiz.  I'm not sure I've ever failed a school assignment (non-math related, anyway) before.  It's weighed most, heavily, though, because my acceptance into a nursing program is in part dependent on my grade point average - a grade point average I'd hoped to help, not hinder further, by taking these summer courses.

Unwittingly, I've been putting off the process of applying for admission to the nursing program.  Late last week I realized that I was putting it off, in part, because I was afraid of facing the reality of possible failure.  Of not being accepted.  I was afraid of the risk.  The day before yesterday I was reading a chapter in the book I'm currently making my way through, "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin, and the author talked about happiness coming in part from successes, but that successes can't come unless we risk failure.  I'd have to go back and look to confirm that that was the point she was making, but it was the point that stood out in my brain.

Yesterday I took a risk.  It sounds ridiculous, but it was a really hard thing for me to sit down at the computer and submit my application to the university for the nursing program.  But I did it, even though I still fear I'll be rejected based on my grade point average.  And I'm glad I did.  I have a contingency plan for future study, and I'll be okay (though very disappointed) if I don't get accepted.  I'm convinced, still, that nursing is the direction in which God is leading, and I'm choosing to trust that even this will work out in His timing, and not mine.

It's real now.  I've applied.  And so the waiting begins.  Well, after I finish up all this course work.  Only 6 days remaining!