Middle-school students as well as adults are taking a standardized exam, all in one room. Rachel arrives. She's middle-aged, uptight, and doesn't recall studying for this test. One student takes and re-takes the test, and keeps failing. Others happily depart the room with a passing grade. She stands and awaits her turn, as the test-taking tables are all full.
One younger student impatiently snatches a copy of the test out of turn, but Rachel ignores the rudeness. Tension breeds petulant and uptight disorder. A valuable test copy is finally handed to her. Encumbered, she shuffles to a seat wondering if her fate will be like the other soul in the room, who keeps taking and re-taking the test, shriveling up like a prune from failure.
With countless other items in her arms, including magazines and books, she resembles a poor bag woman or hoarder (her Father's obsessive gene has re-surfaced to the next generation). For long road trips, he always traveled with just-in-case overstuffed briefcases that included everything but "the kitchen sink." Juggling and situating herself is a comedy of errors.
Overwhelmed with references, she manages to misplace the test before ever beginning to take it. The instructors are here, there, and everywhere and never able to aim their attention her way. Rachel is basically invisible to everyone except for one kind-hearted soul. She quietly hands Rachel a special bracelet. The bracelet holds test clues. Alas, the kindness is appreciated, but seems of little value. How, specifically, can the bracelet be useful? And where is her copy of the test?
Invisible, scattered, clueless, she is discouraged but doesn't lose hope. Needing to take the test, but yet, unable to do so is a precarious quandary. She leaves the room in search of hidden treasure. Good thing because in the hallways are rumors about the secret of the bracelet. Holidays and special dates. As Rachel heads back to the testing room, others are being given bracelets. It appears that people are cheating.
Instructors overhear that answer bracelets are being distributed, but there is no backlash. Rachel determinedly clutches hers like gold to not lose that item, too. She still, however, lacks the measurement instrument... the one thing everyone else in the room has... the exam. It's like having baby clothes and a nursery, but no pregnancy; furniture and a mortgage payment, but no house in which to live; work clothes, schooling and skills, but no career. A critical piece is missing.
Deficient verbal skills and invisibility might on one hand create positive, super-powered anonymity, but they are currently holding Rachel hostage. The only way to receive instructor help for another copy of the test is to attract attention, like fainting or bedazzling, but that is not her style. She's too shy for inordinate attention; more the shell-hiding, stationary tortoise-type than rabbit (although she can be stuttering Roger Rabbit); more the Dramamine allergy queen than drama queen. A roomful of gawking eyes directed toward Ms. Invisible is not gonna happen. Period and exclamation point.
Years ago, unrealistic, perfection ideals stealthily faded like clouds in the sky. Many chemo drips, gray hairs, wrinkles, as well as a muffin top erased those high ideals. She felt vulnerable. But, today, discouragement and depression will not re-surface to distract her from facing the challenge. Overcoming outweighs the alternative. She is determined to bypass the helpless victim mindset. One positive way or another, somehow, she will face the exam.
One last time she desperately searches through her barrage of treasures. Dig, dig, through papers and dig past a literal "kitchen sink." There is a glimmer of hope, slipped inside of a cherished book. In that most curious place, she finally finds the lost test. Like a marathon runner pushing past the wall, she will make it to the finish line. The entire experience feels like a scattered, surreal dream (and actually is).
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| But we have this treasure in jars of clay... We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed (2 Cor. 4:8) I can do all Paul things |
Rachel finally catches the eye of every instructor (did they ignore previous pleas intentionally, as a perseverance pre-test?) They all nod approval to begin. Gratefully, the level of her crisis was far from feeling "struck down" (2 Cor. 4:8), and the experience inspires and deepens her faith. She fervently composes the answer to a burning question that dovetails with heart treasures:
Name one eternal thing for which you are thankful and why.
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