Did Not Find My Stride

I failed by a single point. My hands were wild and tremulous as I entered my information to log in and discover my grade. In my mind, I had fixed the grade of 175. Even at my worst, I was better than that, so I held onto that so I would feel better regardless of the grade. And it helped. I was staying with my cousin in Chicago, and all of my plans to make additional stops on the way home suddenly seemed like a waste of time. After all, a victory lap after failure does not really make sense.

So that Wednesday, I drove the 13 hours home, slapped a smile on my face, and continued on. My ideas of finally living life again became foolish pursuits of a dream world, and now I once again struggle with making myself study as hard as I should. But I guess that this is my life now. Endless cycles of study and failure until God changes His mind and realizes that I truly was not meant for this particular calling. I have everything necessary to excel except for the academic prowess, which happens to be a critical requirement. I do not truly believe everything that I am writing, but a big part of me consists of those doubts, and the only thing holding me to this track is God. Though, if I am being frank, I have no idea what else I would do...

I met up with a crush of mine at a church event on Friday. Given that she started nursing school this semester, she and I had plenty to talk about via text over the previous month or two. She is very much into swing dancing and that evening confirmed my strong suspicions that I do not remember how to swing dance well. I had the same fear about all styles of dancing after my prolonged stay on the island, but my freestyle game appears to hold strong. We also hung out with a good friend of mine, but since he and I are both attention-grabbing funny people, we more or less dominated the conversation.

Anyway, today is Sunday and I spent half an hour debating whether to go to church. The last time I remember deciding to go last year, I felt the odd sensation of the Holy Spirit telling me that something was off. I am sure that it had something to do with the political undertones of the sermon. So a year later, after the politics have died down slightly, I still feel uncomfortable with church, due to the knowledge that a great many prominent members of its congregation support people whose actions and ideas are remarkably contrary to the teachings of Scripture. In a post-evangelical world, this is unsatisfactory to me as a believer, and I am unsure of how to deal with it.