Professional Exam 1

Wow it has been a long time since I last blogged properly!

Anywayssss, I wanted to blog about this because I want people to know that I passed my Professional Exam 1 (PE), and all glory belongs to God! :)

Just a few blog posts ago, here, I blogged about how God brought me through my 1st final exam in medical school, and at that time, I told myself that I would work hard and work consistently in Year 2. That did not happen. At all. I ended up missing most of the first week of classes because I only came back from Canada after classes started, and from then, I got lazy to catch up with my studies and my intention to be constantly up-to-date in terms of my studies flew out the window. In fact, I think I put in even less effort in my studies in Year 2 than in Year 1, something I didn't think was possible seeing how little effort I put into my first year of medical studies.

When my PE was coming up (the giant finals that covers everything from Years 1 and 2 of medical school), I was still in denial, always coming up with excuses not to study, doing so many other things I convinced myself I needed to do that had nothing to do with my studies (of course), and just doing everything but studying. It came to a point where I literally had no idea where to start studying, no idea what I could possibly do to be able to be prepared for my PE.

In other words, when my study break started, my new excuse for not studying was worrying about where to start studying. I had a huge pile of notes to study, most of which I had never touched, ever. There were so few sets that I had ever touched throughout the two years, but even that was so long ago I couldn't remember a single thing. Things weren't looking so good for me.

But God is good. Day after day, I received so many reminders of how great He is and how I have victory in Him. He reminded me in so many ways that He was in control and He loves me and He always wants what is best for me.

Still, it was not easy at all knowing that there was a really important exam coming up, and knowing I would never be prepared in time for it. I was so far behind in my studies it was physically impossible for me to cover enough ground to even dream of passing the exam.

Even so, God never gave up on me, even when I started to give up on Him and on myself. He kept reminding me of what was done on the cross, and that because Jesus died on the cross for us, victory was already mine, victory over sickness, victory over problems, victory over whatever mountains placed in front of me. "Hey," God was telling me, "the battle has already been won for you! Jesus has won it all for you!"

While I was focused on the mountain of notes I had yet to conquer, God kept reminding me that because of what was done on the cross, my mountains had already been conquered. While I told myself that there was no way I would be able to pass my PE, God was telling me that nothing is impossible for Him. While I kept worrying, God was telling me to rest and that He had everything under control. While I told myself I deserved to fail and I was going to fail, God told me that while maybe I did deserved to fail, God is full of grace and mercy and He would not let me fail even though that was definitely what I deserved.

I started trying harder to study properly towards the last few days before the exams. However, I didn't have the momentum to study and it would take me such a long time to actually get into "study mode", and that usually only lasted a few minutes. I was easily distracted, and I didn't know what I was doing.

God still kept me close to Him, and He told me to rest in Him and His power. He reminded me over and over of His goodness and faithfulness, His grace and His mercy, and most of all, of His love. Even while I was staring at the mountain of untouched notes that should have been proof that there was no way I was going to pass the exam, I started to feel the peace of God. I started to believe and to proclaim that through and in Christ, nothing was impossible; that His grace is overflowing; that His blesses, and blesses in abundance. I started to really understand that Jesus had taken all things bad and nailed them to the cross so many years ago, so that I can now freely receive all the blessings and love and all things good that I can never deserve, but can now enjoy because of Jesus.

If I were to compare the situation between last year's final exam and this year's PE, I would say that I had studied a lot less percentage of things this year; but still somehow I had more faith and I was more restful this year. I was less panicky and I had learnt to trust in God more this year.

Oh, and I learnt something I never realised before in church sometime during my study break. There is this verse in the Bible (Matthew 17:20) about how if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to move and it will move. This verse is a pretty common one, one that I had heard so many times before. But what I never linked it to before was the verse in Romans 12:3 which says that we are each given a measure of faith.

An analogy is this: you put both your hands together to make something like a bowl, and you scoop up uncooked rice. You have what we call segantang beras in your hands. Take that as "a measure of faith" we are given. Already given. We have that in us once we receive Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. Now out of that, all you need is faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain. Take, for example, a quarter of a grain of rice, and take that as the amount of faith you need to be able to move Mount Kinabalu just by speaking it. Faith as small as a mustard see. How little faith out of the faith that has already been given to us do we need to move a mountain? It isn't all that much, is it? And let me tell you, MUSTARD SEEDS ARE TINY! A mustard seed is way smaller than a quarter of a grain of rice! So just imagine, with Christ, it doesn't take all that much to move a mountain, just a small dot out of so much rice we have!

This really encouraged me because it helped me realise that it wasn't about how much faith I could muster up, but more like how little was needed out for the measure of faith already given to me. I stopped worrying that I would fail BECAUSE OF my lack of faith.

Besides only having so little studying done, a few extra curveballs were thrown in during my exam period, just so they could be overcome to make it even clearer that God's awesomeness knows no bounds. The day before my first day of exams, daddy and mummy were going to fetch me back up to KL. By then I had resorted to mindlessly flipping through as many sets of notes of possible, never mind that nothing went into my head by just flipping through my notes. That Sunday morning, the more sets of notes I took out to flip, the more nervous I started to feel. It was all just too much. After a little while, I decided that it was time to step away from my bundle of notes (and my bundle of nerves with it), and time to travel up to KL so that I could continue flipping through my notes when I reached KL.

We loaded all the things we needed to bring into the car. When we were ready to go, the car wouldn't start. Daddy tried and tried and tried, but the car just refused to start. Finally, we decided to take the other car, so we had to shift all the stuff into the other car instead. After that was done, we finally left the house. Since it had been hot that past few days, the car was really warm, and we decided to open the windows to let out the hot air and let in some cool air. When we wanted to close the windows, lo and behold, one of the windows wouldn't close. The window was stuck wide open. Completely open. Since there was nothing we could do to close the window, we had to have it looked at because no way we could travel all the way to KL with one completely open window.

Since it was a Sunday, all daddy's mechanic friends weren't working. Thank God one of daddy friends, a car accessory shop owner uncle stays in our taman, and he was home, so we went to his house for him to take a look at the window. He took the door apart, and apparently some window mechanism inside the door was broken, and it couldn't be fixed there and then. To cut a long story short, the uncle managed to force the window close, and he managed to find a long piece of wood to hold it close for our trip to KL. So we traveled all the way to KL with the inside panel of one door sitting in the uncle's house, so that the piece of wood holding the window closed was visible to all who looked at the door from the inside, and with wires sticking out all over from the door. And finally, FINALLY, after around 2 hours, we were ready to go.

So we thanked the uncle profusely, and we were finally off. Again. Yayyyy! By then all feelings of nervousness about my exam had evaporated, and I was more amused than anything else by the turn of events. And then, after a few minutes of leaving the uncle's house, we noticed that the back lights of the car was on. We pressed all the buttons for the lights but they still didn't go off. Daddy said that the lights would drain the car battery really fast, so traveling with that light on was not an option. I was pretty sure by then that these were all signs that I shouldn't go to KL for the exam, but mum and dad disagreed (haiyaaa!). Well, no harm trying, right? Hahaha

Anyway, we turned back to our taman to see if maybe the uncle knew what was wrong. Before reaching his house, though, daddy stopped the car and after some fidgeting with the doors and the buttons (and pretty much everything that we could fidget with), the lights went off! So once again, we were on our way to KL! This time, though, the car didn't give us anymore problems and we got to KL safely, thank God! :D

That was the day before my exams started. My PE lasted 3 days, with 2 papers the first day, 1 the second, and 2 the third day. On the second day of exams, I woke up with a sore throat, and that evening, I started to feel a bit feverish. I felt lousy, but didn't come down with an actual fever. I went to bed early and twisted and turned in bed for a long time trying to fall asleep. In the middle of the night, I woke up with a fever and headache which felt like there was a disco party going on inside my head. I felt horrible. I prayed that the fever would go off and I wouldn't have to sit through my last two papers with a fever. In the morning, I woke up and (thank God!) my fever was gone, and the disco party had ended :D

A few days after the exams finished, when the list of students called for the viva voce exam came out, I was already in Kota Bahru with daddy, mummy and niko, for niko's birthday. Daddy had bought the flight tickets some time back "by faith". And true enough, I wasn't in the viva list :)

When the actual results came out, we were still in KB. I remember. We were in KB Mall, where niko was getting some stuff he needed. I got a call from a friend, Karen, telling me that I passed. It took some time for it to sink in, and in that moment I felt so relieved and so thankful to God because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I only passed because of Him. There is no other way to explain how I passed.

Me passing is nothing short of a miracle. Honestly, if you see how much of my notes I have read through, compared to the big heap of notes I was supposed to study, you would know that this pass is all God. I cannot take any credit for passing, not at all, because I don't deserve to pass. It is His grace that brought me through my first 2 years of medical school, and it is because of Him I can look forward to starting Year 3 with the rest of my classmates and friends.

My God never fails, and I am blessed. So, so, so blessed that I am His child. His grace never fails to amaze me :)))

This song "In Christ Alone" by Brian Littrell is one of my favourites. It is in Christ alone that I place my trust and find my glory in the power of the cross :)

I love the lyrics:

In Christ alone will I glory 
Though I could pride myself in battles won 
For I've been blessed beyond measure 
And by His strength alone I'll overcome 
Oh, I could stop and count successes like diamonds in my hands 
But those trophies could not equal to the grace by which I stand 

[chorus] 
In Christ alone 
I place my trust 
And find my glory in the power of the cross 
In every victory 
Let it be said of me 
My source of strength 
My source of hope 
Is Christ alone 

In Christ alone do I glory 
For only by His grace I am redeemed 
For only His tender mercy 
Could reach beyond my weakness to my need 
And now I seek no greater honour in just to know Him more 
And to count my gains but losses to the glory of my Lord 

[chorus] 
In Christ alone 
I place my trust 
And find my glory in the power of the cross 
In every victory 
Let it be said of me 
My source of strength 
My source of hope 
Is Christ alone