I’d be lying if I said I’m not a nerd. I’m seriously a BIG nerd. For example, I’m in botany this semester. Now whenever I go running or am walking on campus, I find myself looking a little closer at the plant life around me. I’ll literally stop to examine a flower to see if I can identify the organs or other characteristics. Or I’ll try to see if I can distinguish between a male or female pine cones. I’m no botanist, but I’ve learned to appreciate the science and beauty behind a budding stem. I’m also in histology right now. I remember in anatomy when my teacher was drawing taste buds on the board and I thought, “there is no way taste buds seriously look like that. That is so dumb.” And then when we looked at slides of them, they really did look like that! I loved it!
School has always been important to me. It would also be a lie if I said don’t find my worth in my grades. It’s something I’ve struggled with for a long time. Since I was pretty young, grades have defined who I am and my worth. It’s hard not to care so much when your identity is tied to being a student, and when you devote so much time and energy into studies. Getting anything other than an A was unacceptable in my eyes. Luckily, I got my first B’s last year, and since then, God has been showing me that my true worth is found in Him-nothing and no one else. Last Friday I got a grade on my histology test that I was really disappointed in. I was really angry at myself. I wasn’t enough. About 20 minutes after class, I opened up Francis Chan’s book, Crazy Love. I came to this line and read and re-read it:
“The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing God treasures us.”
It really put my studies in perspective in that moment. It's great knowing how chemical reactions occur, how and why macrophages engulf foreign particles, how plants photosynthesize, what a benzene ring looks like, how acceleration affects velocity, the structures of a planaria, the functions of organelles, how DNA synthesis occurs…etc. Getting good grades is nice. But knowing that I am valued by the creator of the universe is so much better! Are grades still important to me? Yes. But I'm learning that worth cannot be found in them. Thank goodness for a father who doesn’t base his love for us on a grade.
