The MPRE nightmare

I was dumb.....I should have already taken the MPRE, but I didn't...I procrastinated.  So here is my story of what happened to me today while trying to get to the testing site......Please learn from my mistakes!!!  (This was copied from my facebook notes)

Some mornings, when your feet hit the floor, you know instantly you want a “do over.”  My do over actually started sometime around 1 am when I realized that sleep was nowhere near.  Knowing I had one of my last hurdles to bar admission, I was frustrated.  2 am rolls around and I am laying in bed praying for peace and rest .  Sometime later, as I am about to fall asleep, the two cats get in a cat fight in my bedroom.  I startle.  Yell at the cats.  Sometime later, one cat is in my room doing something under the bed, messing with stuff.  I yell, kick the cats out, close the door, lay back down.  Sometime later, one cat was not happy with the closed door and began scratching at it and the carpet……. 4 am, eyes now still wide open, stomach growling.  Get up, eat something, lay back down.  Nothing.  I slowly watch the light begin to pierce my curtains and realize, another night with no sleep.

As soon as my feet hit the floor I realize I forgot to pay the rent which was due by the 5^th. I knew if I could get the payment in the drop box before the managers got there, it would not be late, and I would not owe a 75.00 late fee --- BUT I CAN’T FIND THE CHECKBOOK!?!?!?!?!?!  After a frantic 20 minute search, Ashlee locates one that was hidden somewhere – go figure.  Pay the rent, pour the coffee, grab my purse and realize that my ticket for admission to the test is not where I left it the night before.  Neither are the directions…. Can’t find it….. 7:45, I should have left.  Frantically print off another one and realize that the stupid thing required a picture to be affixed to it….. scramble to find one.  Affix it.   8 am out the door….. Get in the car, spill coffee down the front of me---scalding hot—turn the car on, head down the road and “ding-ding-ding” fuel light on…. WTH!?!?!?!  Someone surely designed this day to stop me.  But I stop and get gas and start praying – HARD!  Please Lord, let there be no traffic.  Please let me get there.  Please pave the way like the parting of the red sea.  And please, please, please, no COPS!

Off I go….time:  8:15.  Miles to go:  60.4.  Oh and by the way, I have no idea where the University of Portland is.  I mistakenly thought it was Portland State until I plugged it into the GPS at the gas station.  I am a dummy.  Tuck in behind a red car (the cop should get him first, he is flashier then my little blue car).  Speed along.  Thanking God no police (Sorry Jimmy), and no accidents…..gaining time on the GPS, might just make it with 1 minute to spare.

Hit Wilsonville --- Why is it when there is an accident going the opposite way, my lane stops?  Yeah….it did…..   finally get through……praying………..”God, if the traffic parts, I can make it still.  Please Lord, please.”  What happens next?  Yeah, the Terwilliger Curves…… where traffic ALWAYS stops.  And it did.  At this point I wonder if I should just turn around…. Nope.  Not gonna, I am going to trust God and go on.  5 minutes left, getting off the exit—I know I can JUST MAKE IT.  The school is only 2 miles away on the GPS……….OMG-----------------NO FREAKIN’ WAY!  THE CITY BUS (Betcha satan was personally driving that one.)  Directions are wrong….schools not there. 

I turn around…..9:05, frantic call to my mom.  She’s not available so I talk to Amy….I start crying.  At this point, the ticket clearly says they won’t sit you after 9.  Amy says, “Go – Try – We’ll pray.”  9:10, I rip into a parking spot, tear off my flip flops and run across the grass as fast as possible.  Heart is pounding……I run right into one of the administers.  She looks at me, I am crying… I said, “I have to get in there.  I just sat for the bar last week.  If I don’t take this test….I won’t be able to practice until after the 1^st of the year.  Please.”  Her face softens and she says, “I just sat the last classroom.  Let’s go see if it’s okay with the proctor.”  And it was okay with the proctor.

At this point, I don’t even know if I passed the test.  I can’t remember it.  I was upset, tired, eyes puffy and completely not composed, but I was in there……with one thing left to do….Pray HARD.

Here’s what I learned today:  GOD LISTEN AND HE PROVIDES.  I could have given up.  I could have turned around.  I could have said, “Well the ticket says………”  But I didn’t.  I pushed and pushed and allowed Him to work.  I allowed Him to show me His glory.  To make a morning that was crap……turn to glory.

As I drove home, He was not done with me. I don’t normally listen to Christian Rock or radio…… all sounds pretty much the same to me, but I turned it on.  I needed so bad to feel uplifted and to feel settled.  Prayer wasn’t doing it.  I could see Him working, but Goodness I felt so alone……And then it was magic….the playlist was like listening to love songs that He wrote for me.  What I needed at THAT specific moment.  So here is the second thing I learned…. Sometimes there is purpose in our exhaustion.  I have not been listening to that still, small voice lately.  But in that drive home, my mind and heart was exhausted and it was then that the healing started to begin.  The assurance that things were going to be okay.  The absolute belief that I am loved ….. In fact a song by Matt Maher affirmed this in that moment, “It's waiting for you knocking at your door, In the moment of truth when your heart hits the floor, And you're on your knees.”  The exhaustion, the stress, the depression of the last several weeks, the insomnia……all the ugliness that had been thrown at me……were being used for a moment for MY HEART to hit the floor – and for me to experience that moment on my knees…..  And then followed it up with a beautiful love song by David Crowder:

 He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

That was my message for the day.  And I realized that I would not trade one minute of this hellish morning, if it meant that I would not experience the glory, the love, and the beauty of the affection that God has for me.  To realize that God has time out of his busy day…to speak to me.  He is not too busy to stop and listen to my cry for help and to answer it.  That my stress, my insomnia – my afflictions – he cares about those.  That He cared about a stupid test – for me.  How great is that?  How beautiful is that…. So it with a grateful heart that I thank Him for pushing me to have faith to believe in Him………So no do over for me today.  And you know what?  I am kind of sleepy now…..nap time.  Amen.

 EDITED TO ADD:  So, yeah the missing ticket?  Found it under the bed shredded, chewed on, and in pieces...apparently this is what the cat was doing last night.  Anyone want a cat?