God is good.... All the time!

So, last night I headed off to class after working ALL DAY LONG on my stinkin' research paper and only having added one, one measly little paragraph and 5 definitions to it. Most of my day was spent weeding through two, two (out of about 20) research studies which together equaled 423 pages and trying to highlight the information that I needed to summarize, in my own words, in my paper about them. And I didn't even get the summaries of those two articles written. Oh, no, just highlighted and sitting on top of the 8 files folders of research on my desk in front of me to start this morning. Believe it or not, I was feeling pretty good as I drove to class though. I felt organized. I felt like I had a plan. I felt like the paper was able to be accomplished.

Then I arrived in class. It started with a note on the door saying our professor was going to be late, but would be there and to please wait. Well, that was probably not good. That gave the 17 of us in the class time to talk before she arrived. The more we talked, the more I realized there was a lot of parts of that paper that I still really had no idea how to write. For example, I still had no idea what statistical analysis needed to be ran on my particular type of data (or how to find out). I didn't have the reliability or validity for my assessment (but she was supposed to send that to us because apparently TCAP is not found in the Mental Measurements Yearbook), there was some definite confusion about how to arrange our review of literature because it seems she had told several people different things and the rubric said something else different, I wasn't real clear on how much information needed to be included in several of the sections, and the big thing that dawned on me... I got all of my research from online databases through Tech's library and I had assumed I would just reference the things the same way I would a printed article, but apparently some other students had asked about this and were told that we had to provide the URL address for each of those articles. Um, I don't have this information. And it took me weeks to even find them all. I'm still waiting on Tech to mail me two articles that I could not find the full text of online. It would take me a long time to go back and look all the URLs up again. It was already going to take long enough just to punch holes in all of the articles and put them in a stinking 3-ring binder to turn into her. I began to feel sick to my stomach. This is not one of those professors who just checks your name off if you turn a paper in, either. I was pretty darn sure she was going to grade them. And the reference section was worth quite a few points. I was still feeling sick, but trying not to get stressed out about it and trying to decide whether or not I was going to ask her about it (I had a page from the APA manual that clearly said if the electronic version is identical to the print version, you do not have to include the URL, so I thought I might could argue my case) or not ask her and just see what happened, when she arrived.

As reassuring as always, she flew into the room in a big panic, all in a big way about how behind we were in covering the material for the exam and that she knew we probably had questions about our paper because she knew there were probably certain things in our paper that were causing us "gut wrenching terror" so she wanted to give us some time before the break to ask our questions. I thought back about her analogy of the research class to pregnancy and childbirth and decided this must be what is referred to as transition. Many women vomit during transition. Luckily, I never did with either of my kids. Unfortunately, I have a feeling the poor woman next to me did... a few minutes into class, she turned white as a sheet and had to leave because she was sick. She never came back. Anyway, I digress, the only good thing about transition is that it is the quickest phase of labor and it means that it is almost time to push which means it is almost over. I think "pushing" will definitely describe what the rest of this week will be like. Ok, enough disgusting labor analogies, I'll leave those to my professor.

So, she then began talking about data collection, how we will organize it into a spreadsheet. Each time she said we would "tell Excel" to do something she did a little click of her tongue. If only it were that easy, but last time I checked, Excel did not respond to voice commands and I have no clue how to "tell" it how to make a histogram or whatever the heck else. She taught us about measures of central tendency, frequency polygons, stem and leaf displays, positive and negative skews, measures of spread or dispersion, measures of relative position, and measures of relationship. She drew numerous drawings on the board and we analyzed a chart of men's shoe sizes for 30 minutes. She spent another 30 minutes talking to us about properties of the mean, specifically, that the sum of the difference from raw score to the mean is zero (don't worry, I don't know what that means, either), and then spent a lot of time demonstrating this with about seven other numbers that we knew were not the mean to show us that if you use a number that is not the mean it won't equal zero. I still don't understand why that is even important. And another interesting thing, we don't actually do any of this data analysis in our paper that is due next week. All the data analysis is for the second part of our paper which we will turn in next semester. I mean, it will be on our test. But we have four more classes after our paper is due next week before our test. Couldn't we maybe, just maybe spend this one teeny tiny little class talking about our paper and how none of us know what the heck we are doing to complete it? Just maybe?

Apparently not. The time for our class to be over, 7:50 (Central Time), came and went. Maybe she thought since she was late, she would make it up to us, I don't know. At 8:00, she said, "I want to show you this one more thing that we are going to look at next week before you go." At 8:15, she said, we'll also take a look at this next week.... At 8:20, she ended class. We never had an opportunity to ask any questions. I sat there dumbfounded. I could feel my face was hot. Most people left, thoroughly disgusted. Maybe it was because they were in transition, maybe they were just tired. About 3 of us stayed. I was the second person to get to ask my questions. I tried to prioritize what I really needed to know and what I could possibly figure out on my own. I decided I really needed to know what type of statistical test I needed to run and that that was also what I was least likely to figure out on my own. It took her 30 minutes to explain it. She did draw me a nice picture I could take with me, though. I left class at 8:55 (Central Time), 9:55 my time. I felt sick. Transition. I was almost in tears when I got to my car. I was stressed.

But then, I began to think about what really mattered. In six days, one way or another, this paper will be over for me. I will get it done (I always do). I will turn it in. I may not make an A, but whether I make an A or a C, it doesn't really matter. I will graduate. I will get my Masters degree. It is such a minor upset in my life. It is so temporary. It is so small. It is so petty.

Not like, for example, my uncle, Ray. Ray, who has suffered with diabetes since childhood. Who lost nearly all of his kidney function. Who underwent a kidney and pancreas transplant. Who suffered a heart attack at the time of the transplant. Who recovered and returned home and later got a fungal infection in his foot that would not heal. Who had to have his foot and a good part of his leg amputated. Who remained sick even after the amputation. Who got his face sunburned just while sitting on the swing with his granddaughters and got an infection from it. Who is back in the hospital and very sick. Who had another heart attack in the hospital. Who underwent an heart cath and had stints placed. And who is still gravely ill. Not like Ray. Or his dear, sweet family.

Or not like my great-uncle Hershel who has been suffering and bed-ridden for several months now, but still trying to live the best he can. Still laughing and joking with his family. Who decided, with his family, that they would not place him back on the ventilator after his last heart attack. Who went home with hospice care, knowing that there was nothing more to be done. Who passed away yesterday afternoon and went to be with the Lord after a long and blessed life. Who left a grieving family behind. Not like him. Not like his wife who has lost her life partner and is herself confined to a wheelchair due to osteoporosis. Not like his daughter, his only child, who was his caregiver. Not like my grandfather who lost his only living brother yesterday. Not like them.

And not like Stellan who is so precious and innocent and suffering in a hospital. Not like his mother who is by his side around the clock. Or his dad who is at home caring for their three other small children. Or his siblings who are missing their mommy. Not like them.

Not like Angie, who lost her precious daughter a year ago. Who carried her, knowing she would not live. Who turned her baby over to God and celebrated her short life, the months in her womb, and the minutes in her arms. Who allowed God to use her daughter's short life and death for His glory. Not like her.

Not like Savannah and her family who have faced Cancer for the last year, yet choose to bless others with their faith.

Not like Hannah and her family who face her brain tumor, yet choose to find ways to help others in the midst of their trial.

Not like a sweet family at our church whose beautiful, precious baby underwent surgery for a brain tumor two weeks ago.

Not like countless, thousands of others around this world who are facing life-altering situations every second of the day.

Not like any of them. My stress is so small, so tiny. But God still recognizes it. He still helps me. He still sustains me. He gave me the clarity to put my problems into perspective and calm down. He provided me with a job where I have some down time to work on my paper (without kids under my feet and turning the computer off on me) and lessened my student load to a point where I have a lot of time to work on it right now. He blessed me with an ability to write, so that part is not a major obstacle for me. God is good.

That is what I thought of as I was driving home last night. That is what I was thanking God for.

Then I arrived at work this morning. I was all set to jump right in and get started on that research paper, but first I wanted to check on little Stellan. And this is what I found. Go ahead, click on it. Watch the slideshow. Read the news story. Let everyone know... God is good. All the time. Amazing.

And I decided to blog about this instead of getting started on my research paper, so

All will know, how great is our God!

No problem is too small or insignificant to Him. He can handle them all. Take it to your Lord in prayer.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20,21

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26