Titanic
I hopped up the last step, glad to have finally reached my destination. I quickly walked/ran into McKee Library and sat at a computer, constantly reminding myself that time was of the essence. I had just enough time to edit my essay, print it, and study for the oncoming quiz, and I knew that every second was a precious gift from God. I opened my email account, expecting to see my essay waiting for me, but instead found an empty inbox. I blinked. Could what I was seeing be real? Did I really forget to send my essay?
Mentally kicking myself (over and over), I jumped from my seat, jogged out the door, and raced back down the steps. As I sped walked back to Talge, I couldn’t help but think of what a lousy start my day had gotten off to. It hadn’t just been the email incident – it was the essay itself that I had to worry about.
I had woken up at three a.m. after two and a half hours of sleep to work on my essay. After summoning the strength to pull myself out of bed, I frowned at my messy prewriting, hoping to find an essay somewhere among the tiny scribbles and arrows. I wrote slowly, but I was glad that I was writing at all. A page and three quarters later, I read over my essay… and discovered that I hated every single part of it.
Trying to prevent panic, I reminded myself that actually having an essay was all that was important and continued writing. Then I hit a road block. Frustrated that writers’ block had chosen the worst possible time to kick in, I leaped unto my bed and announced to my bleary-eyed roommate that I quit. It was only then that I remembered that I had a quiz in the same class and had to, once again, summon the strength to get out of bed.
I struggled to add more to my essay, hoping to at least give it the illusion of fullness, and when the sun began to rise, I developed a plan. The plan was simple: finish one more page, rush to the library, edit and print, and study with the time left. I was proud of myself. I had developed a foolproof plan that would stop me from wasting time by trying to multitask. Now all I had to do was put the plan into action. What could possibly go wrong?
I ran up the steps to my dorm room, bitterly snickering at how easily my supposedly foolproof plan had failed. It was like the Titanic: my pride had blinded me to the fact that one unseen obstacle could have disastrous effects. Now the ship was sinking and there was nothing I could do about it.
Or was there?
In the midst of rushing to send my essay to my email, I saw a Bible text that I had pinned on the wall and stopped. “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies” (2 Samuel 22:4). If my enemies are anything that causes me stress, I thought to myself, then this essay is the worst of them all. Deciding that the ship would only sink if I took the wheel, I got on my knees, forgot about the time, and prepared myself to talk to God.
There were so many ways I could have talked to God. I could have started with some Old English praise – you know, throw in a couple of “thou arts” and a maybe an “O Lord, who reigns on high!” or two. I could have quoted Scripture – just to let Him know that I was reading and holding Him to His promises. I could have even started with a thesis statement, supported it with evidence (stories, facts, imagery, and quotations), and wrapped it up with a tasteful conclusion. But why go through all that trouble? It was just Him and me. The Creator of the universe was willing to listen to little, insignificant ol’ me, and He cared about what I had to say – not how I said it.
With that in mind, I bowed my head and told God exactly what I was feeling: “God, this day sucks – and it hasn’t even started yet!” I poured out my heart to God. I let Him know how hopeless and lost and weak I felt, and I asked for help. I got up off of my knees not necessarily feeling better – I still had a terrible essay to print and a quiz to study for – but feeling a bit more confident. I then rushed out the door, interested in, and truthfully, a little doubtfully about, what God had in store.
I can honestly say that that day was the best day I had had in weeks. I had time to study after running back to the library, aced the quiz, got advice on how to fix my essay from my professor, followed my professor to Brock Hall where I met other English-lovin’ folk, finally had a break-through on my article for a journalism class, hung out with some friends, somehow ended up joining a volleyball team, and got, for the first time in weeks, eight hours of sleep.
Do you know what I notice? We don’t really use the adjective “titanic” anymore. Believe it or not, the word refers to more than just a British luxury liner that met its end in 1912, taking the lives of 1,517 people and inspiring a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The word titanic means enormous in size, strength, and power. The Titanic may not have been as titanic as advertised, but God is, and even more so. The fact that we can talk to a God who is so strong, so powerful, so titanic should be more than enough to inspire the awe of many.
That just might have been the point that the singing puppets were trying to get across during Week of Prayer.