A Beautiful Surprise

My graduation day in senior high school was a thrilling surprise. I would never forget that day because that was the day when God proved He loves me and miracles do happen. Before that, I’ve never imagined to get such a beautiful surprise from God because I was overwhelmed by disappointment. At that time, I was disappointed with my scores in the national exam and also with God. How could that be? Let me tell you the story.

In the third grade of high school, every student in Indonesia has to face the national exam, including me. Long before it, I had a commitment that I would do the national exam with my best efforts and honestly. At first, I was quite satisfied when the government supported my commitment by promising that they would try to minimize the potential of cheaters. But as usual, I had a wrong judgement. On the exact days of national exam, I saw lots of my friends having total freedom to cheat from the answers key they had bought before. I was angry, but could do nothing. I nearly had a fit on the day I did the maths exam. I studied all night long, but I still couldn’t do well my maths and I had to pass on several numbers. Ironically, my friends who cheated could happily say that the answers key gave them 80% correct answers. I was completely disappointed and I thought why would God let this happen to me? That was so unfair!

Therefore, when it came to the graduation day I really worried about my final scores, although I knew that I had passed it. I worried about my total scores because I was not sure about my chemistry, physics, and of course my maths scores. I was really curious about it because before that I had ambition to get an average score of 8 in my total scores in the exam. Moreover, when I saw the trophies in front of the stage, I thought that it must not be me who would get one of them. I thought one of the trophies would be owned by one of my friends, Yosephine or Yosua who used to be in the first rank in my class. I really had no idea about getting even one of the smallest trophies because of my disappointment in my maths scores and in the procedures of the national exam. All of a sudden, I heard my teacher calling my name as one of the highest-scores-achievers in the total scores of national exam and the school final exam. I was extremely shocked and couldn’t believe it. First thing I had in mind is that I was so thankful to God and also apologized to Him that I was once angry with him.

Until now, I remember that day as a truly thrilling and beautiful surprise that God has given me. That day also reminds me not to underestimate God’s power.