Mrs. Neumann told me that I was such a nice girl but not very bright. She was my seventh-grade teacher and although it might not have been stated in the kindest way, it was true. I struggled with the basics and didn’t seem to be able to string concepts together the way others did.
Trying to find a college program that would take me with my tricky academic standing wasn’t easy and I almost gave up but my supervisor at the hospital where I worked stepped in on my behalf and asked a friend in the school’s nursing department if they could take a second look at my application. Within a few weeks, I was admitted to the nursing program.
It wasn’t long before my “inability” started to show as my testing scores didn’t match the work I was doing and as the marking period came to a close, it appeared that maybe my time at the school would too. My professor, Mrs. Barker, pulled me aside and asked some questions about my previous school years. She then talked to my other professors to see if they were seeing the same thing.
I was feeling pretty doomed.
Little did I know that I had an advocate. She was able to see the qualities in me that I didn’t and fight for me. I still needed to be able to learn the skills and knowledge. Given it was over forty years ago, no one was looking into learning differences at the time but Mrs. Barker worked with other professors to facilitate a plan to graduate me as an RN. It took an extra semester and a ton of extra work on my part but being advocated for was something new for “this nice but not too bright girl.”
Later on in life, I learned that I have an ultimate advocate. His name is Jesus. He is the one who steps in for me when I struggle to advocate for myself.
You have the same advocate. He died for you to prove it.
Tune in to see where the book of Hebrews takes us this weekend.
