Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; When I fall, I shall rise; When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. Micah 7:8

Ever since elementary school, I have had a difficulty with math. As a small second grader, I started to sense that I wasn’t understanding how to do what felt like long, tedious problems. I would start a problem correctly, then forget the next step to take. In fourth grade, my class started to learn fractions. For many of my classmates, learning fractions was fun, but I felt like I was falling into a huge hole of math darkness.

When I started sixth grade, my new math teacher was kind. She wanted to help me as much as she could and suggested I try intense tutoring over the summer to try to pull me out this dark hole of math. Yet at the end of August, I still felt like I was in there and nothing could pull me out. In eighth grade, my teacher did not give up. I met with her at lunchtime. Over those weeks, we started to work together well and become friends; she even came to my confirmation at the National Cathedral! At my eighth-grade commencement, I felt sad, because I would no longer be her student.

When I began high school in September, I was assigned my own math tutor. Suddenly, I felt pushed out of the darkness. One day, I received a test with such a high grade that I didn’t know what to say. I felt like a huge rock had been pulled away from a closed cave and there was light!

Like the prophet Micah, I know that God is there – even in my hardest moments. Sometimes during my period of math darkness, I felt that He wasn’t there, but He was. He was in my teachers as they helped and encouraged me not to give up. They helped me emerge from the darkness and move toward the light.

Thea Crouch

Appointed readings for today: Micah 7:7-9; Psalm 27:1, 10-18; John 9:1-38