C.A. Gray's Blog, page 89

God Will Fight For You (if you let Him!)

(This is a true story, but I’ve purposely left out all names to protect the innocent and the guilty alike!)

God is a God of justice.  He can be trusted.  He will fight for you… but only if you let Him.  Take matters into your own hands, and that’s all you get.  (And His justice is WAAAAAY better than yours.)

In medical school, I was that kid who studied twelve hours a day, six days a week. Everyone else was social, but I didn’t ever have time to go out; I’d have one social evening per week, if that. I was rewarded with a residency in Portland, Oregon. This was significant because when I graduated, there weren’t enough residencies to go around — only the very top students in the (at the time) six accredited naturopathic schools in North America got residencies.

Then, six months before graduation, we had a weekend-long class, evaluated on a single paper.  I wrote the paper weeks before anyone else did, and turned it in. I only later found out that the instructor had uploaded a template that we had to follow, and I hadn’t known about it, so I hadn’t followed it.  The instructor failed me because of that, which would mean I’d have to re-take the class.  But the class wasn’t offered again until after graduation… which would mean I wouldn’t graduate… which would mean I’d lose my residency… which would mean I’d get pushed back six months and couldn’t take boards and start practicing.

You can imagine how much and how long I appealed and begged all the “powers that be” for justice, but to no avail.  Months went by; all my classmates, who had studied much less than I had, were making graduation plans and lining up jobs.  But I rehearsed what I knew about the Lord:

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret — it leads only to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land” (Ps 37:5-9).

I had to turn down the residency — I’d actually planned to do so anyway, but the fact that I “lost” a residency made my story much more sensational (since I was one of many who had failed this class for the same reason, and suffered similar consequences… but there had never been a residency at stake before).  I appealed multiple times each to the instructor; to the head of the department; to the dean of students; to the Academic Progress Committee; and finally to both the medical director and the president of the school, only to be told “no,” for months.  But I still believed that the Lord would deliver me — and because I believed it, I paid the $1000 for boards and continued to study my butt off, in faith that I’d be allowed to take them.

Two days before graduation, a friend asked me what had finally happened, and I told him nothing but solid refusal. All I could figure was they were afraid if they passed me, it would set a precedent they didn’t want. The friend was outraged on my behalf.  He circulated a petition to the class, and every one of them signed it, demanding that the Academic Progress Committee reevaluate my case. The APC called a special meeting that day. The head of the department of the class in question showed up to that meeting to defend why they should not pass me, even though she wasn’t normally part of that committee.

The APC refused me again. It was now the day before graduation.

My class was so outraged, they all got up and stormed out of our last lecture ever, and camped out in the president’s office for an HOUR AND A HALF, each telling stories about me.  “You can’t do that to this girl.  Let me tell you about her.” “Of all the people you could do this to, her!?  She’s the one we all went to for notes. She’s the one we ask for the answers after the exams. She’s the one…” One by one, they went around the room, sharing stories about me that I didn’t even know they’d noticed — up until this point, I didn’t really think any of them cared about me. I sat in the corner, listening and crying.

The dean of students was present too, and she came up with the following idea: the class I’d failed was offered again after graduation, but the weekend before boards.  To keep the professors happy, I had to re-take the class (and submit the now-correctly formatted paper that I’d written months earlier, but no one would grade). So I still could not take part in the actual graduation ceremony. But if I re-took the class and passed, they could “rush” a graduation for me and I could sit for boards, literally the very next day.

The class was still angry — this wasn’t justice enough for them.  So the graduation speaker wrote me into his speech: “Some of our best and our brightest should be up here with us today.”  Then he called out my name, and that of another girl who had failed for the same reason, and asked us to stand.  My class stood and gave us a standing ovation, and then the speaker motioned entire auditorium to their feet as well.  (The only people neither standing nor cheering were the administration faculty on the stage, all of whom looked distinctly uncomfortable.)

I re-took the class (and the head of the department still gave me a C on the paper, the minimum passing grade — I suspect because it was the most she could do to me for inadvertently making her look foolish in front of the entire administration. That made me laugh). The next day I had the first-ever private graduation ceremony in the president’s office, with half my class in attendance.  As we left, the president said to me offhandedly, “I hope you do well on the boards, after all of this.”  Without even thinking, I replied, “Oh!  I’m gonna obliterate ‘em!”  He muttered, almost under his breath,  “I know you will.”

I sat for boards the next day, and passed, of course.  Six months later, one of my classmates who had fought for me ran into the president, who made the offhand comment that I had, in fact, “rocked the boards” — apparently he’d been curious enough after all of that to look up my score.  (After all, for all they knew, I had no more than a few weeks’ notice that I would even be allowed to take the boards. But I’d actually been studying for months, long before I knew in the “natural” that I’d be allowed to do so — and whenever I’d gotten discouraged, I had envisioned the looks on the collective administration’s faces when they heard my score!)

Even up to two years later, students who never even knew me were still talking about that story… and not just the story, but the way I’d trusted in the Lord to deliver me, and then He had — spectacularly.  A lot of important people who had denied me ended up looking very foolish — by no actions of mine.  And to my knowledge, no one has ever failed that class for the same reason again.

Proverbs 20:22 says, “Do not say, ‘I’ll pay you back for this wrong!’ Wait for the Lord, and he will deliver you.”
Prov 21:12: “The Righteous One takes note of the house of the wicked and brings the wicked to ruin.”
Matt 5:44: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”
Matt 5:5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Matt 8 (The Faith of the Centurion): trust the word that Jesus speaks, regardless of how the circumstances look.
Prov 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
Luke 18 (The Parable of the Persistent Widow): God will grant justice to those who are persistent in prayer, but you must have faith that He will do it.

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