By Laura Zapata

“I’m never going to make it,” I cried as I shrank into the narrow chair of my desk. With my legs hunched up and my face tucked between my knees, tears began to trickle down my cheeks as a feeling of inability took hold of me. 

On the desk laid a large pile of crumbled papers with long unsolved mathematical equations and the books and guides I had been given at a new school that allowed me to study from home. 

I had spent the whole afternoon trying to understand and solve algebraic calculations with no success. And by the evening, I was feeling like a big failure. 

I got up from the chair and sat down on the bed beside the window of my cramped room. I stared for a long time at the mountains, tears were still in my eyes. “God, I can’t do it alone, I need you to send me help,” I whispered in a small prayer. 

High School Everest 

It had been two years since my mother’s death. The only teacher I had had in my entire life. I had been a homeschooled kid since my birth and my mom had decided to take care of my entire education.

When I was 10 years old, she was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in her lungs, and since then, she had been forced to stop teaching me to recover her health. On the other hand, my father, a busy man devoted to God’s work, had been struggling between taking care of my mother and sustaining the demands of the ministry he had built. 

Now, at the age of 15, I was at my desk trying to get my life back on track and continue with my education after five years without touching a pen and a piece of paper.  

However, the stress and depression of the last five years of my life left me with a great mental difficulty in processing information. My mind was constantly clouded, and long periods of study would lead me to intense headaches.

Numbers were the hardest. Even the simplest mathematical operations seemed like a mixture of different languages impossible to understand. 

I experienced a great mental blockage every time I was exposed to school textbooks. And I was always taken by an overwhelming anxiety whenever I couldn’t understand a topic. As a home-schooled kid, I had limited external help in my studies. Personal tutoring was expensive, and my family’s financial situation was not the best at the time. 

My mother had taught me to value study greatly. Especially if getting any education would lead me to serve God more efficiently. It was one of the most precious legacies I had from her. But even though I was not forced to study, I did not want to give up on my education.

 Many afternoons had gone like that one afternoon when I whispered the small prayer. To that point, many of my textbooks had already been dripped with my tears. And after that day apparently nothing changed in my routine. I continued sitting at the small desk in my room without being able to understand the numbers or the readings. 

But God had prepared a beautiful lesson for me. I learned that no matter that concerns a child of God is so small that it doesn’t deserve His attention and compassion. He will always be ready to reach out to us when we ask for help.

Prayer Answered

The answer to my prayers came little by little. Every time I sat down to study, I would ask God to open my mind and help me understand the smallest of the subjects. Sometimes I had to dig through other old elementary school books searching for basic knowledge. 

Learning was a very slow process. But then I could get to understand a very small portion of the material, and then another bit the next day. Until the sum of those little accomplishments found me jumping with excitement alone in my room.

Not everyone in my family was able to understand and celebrate my small victories with the same enthusiasm. But God and I knew that for my weakened mind, those were the highest mountains He could move.

“We must set aside a room in the main house, uncle Diego is coming to visit us and he will stay for two months,” my father’s voice vibrated with excitement from the kitchen. The news took me by surprise, and for a moment I did not perceive that God was answering my prayer. 

Seconds later, God brought to my mind the petition I had made that afternoon from my window. Three weeks before I had asked the Lord to send me help!

A small flame of hope and gratitude began to burn in my heart. 

“Thank you, Lord, thank you!” I praised God in silence. My uncle Diego was the smartest person in the whole family. He had a degree in biochemistry and had taught calculus and algebra for years to high school students who were preparing to enter college. 

By the time of his arrival, I had managed to learn some basic information on my own, so that I could devote more time to the complicated subjects with his help. His willingness to help me and the amount of time he devoted to my education, finally helped me to unlock my mental abilities. We would spend hours in the dining room of my house next to a board, solving math problems and studying science. Slowly, a large portion of the anxiety and sense of inadequacy disappeared from my life. 

The time came when I was ready to take the final exams at the town’s school. Once in the classroom, I used to ask God to give me the ability to solve problems on my own, and even though it was a great mental effort, I started to get the best grades in the hardest subjects. 

Step by step, and praying to God about those small matters, I finished high school at the age of 19 almost reaching my twenties. Undoubtedly much later than the time when teenagers finish high school in my country, but with the satisfaction of having God as my great tutor.

Divine High School Lessons  

This special providence is one of my favorite life experiences. Through it, God taught me the value of relying completely upon His wisdom when our abilities are not enough. 

I understood that not asking for God’s help is our only limitation. There is truth and power in the words ”If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” (James 1:5)

Two years after finishing high school, I was again sitting at the desk of a small room, this time giving an online interview in English, a language I also had by the grace of God learned on my own, to be accepted as a student to pursue a bachelor’s degree in the United States. 

”They seem good,’ the interviewer said as she reviewed my high school grades. The next day I received the letter of admission into the College.

On the first day of school, I prostrated myself bedside my bed and did the same prayer I did at the window when I was 15 years old.  And since then, in my life as a college student far from home, I have also proved the truthfulness of the words of the apostle Paul ‘’I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’’. Philippians 4:13