A Look Back on My Third Semester of Law School...

I never published this post, but here it is. It's some thoughts about last semester. I have some thoughts on this current semester, so I figured it would only make sense to post this first. :) 


Intense self doubt and fear. It was crippling and it displeased the Lord and He wanted it out of me. This is what I learned this semester in law school, which is even more important than mens rea, Commerce Clause, and the Business Judgment Rule. I came to law school this semester completely absent of any confidence. Maybe it all wore off last year, maybe they worked it all out of me over the past year or so of law school, but I felt so small, so unable to put one foot in front of the other. There were no thoughts of arguments to make that I would think without thinking to myself how dumb I was or how someone else would surely be smarter than me.

It started with Appellate Advocacy. I was giving an oral argument on why being a 2L is better than being a 1L and suddenly the very thing that I really love in law school, oral arguments,  became an insurmountable mountain. I stood behind the podium and began strongly, and then I just quit. Right in the middle I just quit and I looked at my professor and asked if I could start again, after I said, “ I can’t do it.” These are words that I know that God does not like. I’m His child and He has placed within me the ability to do this and I was telling Him He was wrong, that He picked the wrong girl. Certainly, what I learned is that in my flesh, I really can’t do anything—apart from Him. I can feel Him working that out of me and it has been painful. This semester has been like an emotional boot camp, but I have been forced to look to the Lord. Forced perhaps is the wrong word, but I saw very clearly in front of me the choice I had to make: Fail because I relied on myself, or succeed because I relied on Him and worked as unto Him. Success here, does not mean in a worldly sense. For me, it meant pleasing the Lord. When I stopped looking at failure and started looking to the one who put the talents and skills that I have inside of me, my joy was full, in spite of outcome.

Then came the 2L/3L Moot Court tournament. Where did the love of the competition go? I called my pastor’s wife in tears because I truly wanted to drop out. I can't do it. Over and over and over. These words ran through my mind and shot out of my mouth like a reflex. It was my natural reaction to everything. Fear and I can’t do it. Where did this come from? Well, for one, I know that those thoughts are not from the Lord; nowhere in the Word does the Lord come to his children with fear and doubt, but rather He speaks to them of His strength being perfected in weakness.

My confidence comes from the Lord. Maybe I’m not one of those dean's listers to whom all of this legal analysis comes easily, but I know that I am a vessel of the Lord and He wants to use me. I’m not the best, I’m not the brightest, but I am His child in his will and with His calling; how could I look around to the left or to the right at anything else?

In my own life I am not allowed to say I can’t. Now, hear me correctly, I am not advocating some kind of prosperity gospel... It’s only because I’m saved that I find my identity in my Lord Jesus Christ. There was a time recently  that I was covicted about only coming to Him when I needed something, but truly looking to him in my weak moments, and in my “strong” moments. If I am truly looking to him in all those moments, then I won't need to worry about whether I’m looking to him....

I have all I need in him.