the night before

Nothing can be more stressful to me than a 65-question final exam that looms like a gigantic crocodile on my horizon, ready to devour me, eyeglasses and all. Especially when I'm only half a night and a hundred textbook pages away from the dread event itself.

Plainly speaking, I'm a grade-conscious control freak. Although I may not seem to be one in light of my irrepressible predilection to take 5-minute power naps while in class, I am a perfectionist to the core. Every week I spend countless hours planning my daily to-do list in my organizer and jotting down the most minute and mundane tasks I need to do. while dreaming and fantasizing of the prospect of getting a perfect column of A's on my transcript at the end of the semester, all at the same time.

And when the going gets tough, I get anxious. Terribly anxious. My palms begin to sweat so much that I can almost see the drops of sweat dripping on my handouts while I hastily leaf through them. Sometimes my stomach gets really queasy that I throw up what's left of the last meal I ate.

There's something definitely wrong with me.

"But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?" Matthew 6.30

Why, oh, why can't and don't I trust You? In spite of my filthy wretchedness, Lord, give me the will to toss my puny hand-made idols into the fire and the heart to treasure Your name above all else, instead of myself. Please, let me rest. In You.