Do I Need To Go To Confession?

[BG45]

This afternoon I learned that I'm the first person in university history to fail all three Qualifiers...I have one more shot in January before I get sent home in disgrace. I've done a lot of crying, not going to pretend I haven't, and I feel totally unworthy of anything right now. I feel unworthy of friendship and love. I feel like my entire life course has been ruined. When I went to the church to pray, I could only sob out the word "Why" after almost an hour in front of the Tabernacle, and as I passed by a picture of the Divine Mercy, for the first time ever, I found myself completely unable to speak the words "Jesus, I trust in You" as I usually do as I pass it as a small prayer.

[CatherineM]

I'm so sorry this happened. I know how hard you studied. This is another situation where you will go through a grieving process, and you are in the denial/anger stage. In a few days, you will be in a place where you can find out why you failed, and then be in a better position to decide how you want to proceed from here. I knew people who flunked out of law school when I was there. One woman told me later that she just didn't want to be there really. Another, came back a few years later and was successful the second time because he had reevaluated what he was doing with his life. When my oldest foster son called to tell us that he wasn't going to graduate with his boot camp class, he was mad, he was afraid he had let us down, he was mostly sad. He could have come home, but I talked him into staying and trying again. They recycled him back with other kids who'd failed into a class a month behind. I told him that it would just be an extra month's worth of pay he'd get to spend on his first liberty (and boy did he).

Failing at something, especially if it is the first time you have failed anything substantial, is a shock to the system. It doesn't mean you are worthless. Everyone has moments where they get mad at God. I listened to a fireman on the radio today who was still in the North Tower of the World Trade Center when it fell. He was on the 4th floor of the stairwell, but survived. He said that when someone says to him that God was with him that day, he corrects them. He tells them that God is always with him and everyone, and to say God was with him and that is why he survived makes it sound like all this friends who died didn't have God with them as they died. God is with us especially when we can't feel him, when we are angry with him, when we turn our backs on him. Jesus told us that he would leave 99 sheep in order to find the one lost lamb. If it would make you feel better, go to confession. Priests are cheaper than psychiatrists.

I could give you the whole, "when God closes a door he opens a window" thing, but you're too raw right now. If you want to talk, I'm available, and I mean that.