Dear friends,
My heart could very nearly burst with excitement right now. All that I have been searching for and dreaming of in the last two years is coming to fruition:
I am going to Regent University School of Law.
Three years ago, I was in a very similar situation. Law had never appealed to me, growing up. Actually, it sounded quite awful to me. When I started earning my college degree during high school, I began to think, "How can I make the most of this opportunity and use my knowledge and 'gap years' to advance God's kingdom as much as possible?"
Or something like that. One of the testimonial videos from CollegePlus showed a boy who graduated from college at 16 and had his law degree by 19. I saw it as a challenge which I inevitably took up. My first goal was to finish MY college degree at 16, not to beat any record but because I knew I could do it. And I knew I needed to push myself as hard as I could, or I would question for th rest of my life if I could have gone faster, accomplished more, saved more money.
I wasn't quite sure about the whole law school part of the testimonial (obviously I didn't get a law degree by 19, since I am currently 20...) but it provided food for thought.
Fast forward to the year 2012. I had successfully finished my B.A. at 16 (with a couple months to spare!). I turned 17 and decided, "Why not do law?" There were lots of ways I could use law to combat human injustices like abortion and sex trafficking, so I decided to take the Law School Application Test, with just a month or so of self-preparation beforehand. Ever been in a situation when it is QUITE obvious that you are the odd one out?
Well, being just-turned-seventeen and surrounded by twenty- and thirty-something-year-old's made me feel inferior, to say the least.
"What the heck am I doing here?" I may have wondered at least once.
I wasn't nervous at all, surprisingly, considering that this one test could determine my future. See, I am a prolific user of the "fleece" first made popular back in the book of Judges by my good pal Gideon.
I gave God a couple "conditions" we'll say (please remember I was seventeen).
1. I will get a score above 150.
2. I will get an internship in a law firm.
3. I will receive a full scholarship.
Yes, I said full. Yes, law tuition is sell-your-soul-to-the-devil, enslave-yourself-to-the-bank expensive these days. Again, we'll call out childhood naivety here OR childlike faith.
You may have come to the conclusion by now that I did NOT get the answer to these fleeces because I am not currently in law school.
And you would be correct.
To be more specific, God
did grant me both the first and second requirements and he gave me quite the hefty scholarship for the one law school where I could envision myself. There were also offers from different schools. But all of a sudden, this was feeling like the completely
wrong thing to do. One condition had not been fulfilled. But the others had. So why was I suddenly feeling like I was a hurling to the edge of a cliff, about to fall? Was I really that ungrateful? I didn't think I was... Yet there was this heavy weight on my mind and heart, telling me
No, Moriah. Don't Go.
So what went wrong?
God, in His Sovereign Grace, saved the day by wrecking my plans, once again.
Looking back, NOT attending law school in the fall of 2013 was the best decision I ever made. Because, instead, I went to a little town called Adams, TN and had the most life-changing, soul-wrecking, God-touched experience I have ever had with an organization called Youth With a Mission.
If you know me very well at all, you know I am a YWAM-er (once a YWAM-er, always a YWAM-er) and you know I absolutely, positively, loved it.
If I hadn't done a DTS, God wouldn't have broken many lies I'd believed about myself.
If I hadn't done a DTS, I wouldn't understand what it's like to live in a third world country for a couple months.
If I hadn't done a DTS, I wouldn't have met the many wonderful, godly friends, including my very first best friend, who has encouraged me and grown me and inspired me countless times.
If I hadn't done a DTS, I would have entered law school NEVER having lived without my family, never having been away from home more than a few weeks, never having the experience of living in a dorm-style situation.
If I hadn't done a DTS, I very well might not have made it through the notoriously difficult first year of college (which I prayerfully believe I can now handle thanks to the experiences I've had!).
At the time though, I was devastated. What would I do with my life now? All I thought I was working towards - gone. I didn't decide to do YWAM until July, and the months leading up to that were filled with worry, confusion, and fear. God had it all along.
When I did start my DTS, I made it clear to myself that law was over. Buh-bye, dreary books and torts and contracts. Never to open again. I let myself be dissuaded with some easy excuses which I didn't know if I believed or not. There were parts of law school that I wasn't looking forward too, and I let that take up the forefront of my brain. During my DTS, law was the topic I tried to avoid. But it kept coming up, like gentle raindrops on a sun-scorched land.
Countless times since returning from DTS, I've been confronted with a situation or testimonial of someone who wanted to change the world, basically "Set the oppressed free and break every yoke" (Isaiah 58:6, my life verse) by using the law, and it has worn down the defenses I built up and brought me a realization.
When God closes a door, he opens a window.
God said "No" to me at one point, but that no was not forever. Sometimes all he wants is SURRENDER, so he can give back what you gave up, but in a more spectacular way.
I don't deserve this grace!
To make a very long story just a bit shorter, I will summarize:
I applied to Regent Law this January. I got a full tuition scholarship. I am going in the fall.
Great are your plans, O Lord, how marvelous are your works!
(P.S.: Regent University is located in Virginia Beach, VA. I will be a full-time JD student which will take three years. I hope to become a human rights lawyer and work against abortion, human trafficking, and child slavery, among other things.)
