What I Flunked and Didn’t

by Donna Poole

Danny finished second grade with excellent grades in every subject, so we were surprised when he flunked his first test in third grade, then his second, and then his third. When he’d failed his first test in every subject his dad talked to him.

“Danny, you were getting really good grades when school ended a few months ago. Now you’re flunking everything. What happened?”

Our golden-haired, fun-loving boy with the charming dimples flashed his dad a smile.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think something must have happened to my brain over the summer!”

When his dad told Danny what was going to happen to him if he didn’t start studying, he failed no more tests. His brain made a sudden and remarkable recovery.

My first bright red “F” on my report card devastated me. I was in second grade and couldn’t even read the word “cat”, so I’m not sure why the F in reading surprised me, but it did. I kept looking at it, hoping it would disappear before I got home and had to show it to Mom, but no such luck.

Mom taught me to read by methods I don’t recommend, but I did quite well in school after that. I didn’t flunk anything else until high school. After breezing through Latin I with all A’s, I started Latin II with confidence.

Before long I was muttering with the rest of the students who were struggling, “Latin is a dead language, dead as it can be; first it killed Julius Caesar, and now it’s killing me.”

When Mom learned I was failing not only Latin but also chemistry, she ordered me to quit every “unnecessary” activity and class, including band.

I loved band. I played third clarinet last chair, and our band director, Mr. Pinto, often told me, “Piarulli, it’s a good thing for you I don’t need one less clarinet.”

Even though the band would be better off without me, Mr. Pinto felt bad for me when I told him I had to quit. He didn’t agree that music was “unnecessary.”

“Give me your phone number. I’ll call your mom. I never yet met a mom I couldn’t reason with.”

“That’s because you haven’t met my mom.”

Mom didn’t mention the call, and I was afraid to ask, so I showed up at band the next day at the usual time, hoping against hope.

Mr. Pinto shook his head. “I’m sorry, Piarulli. Now I’ve met a mom I can’t reason with.”

Despite Mom’s best efforts, I flunked Latin and Chemistry and had to repeat them the next year. I still graduated with a good grade point average because of high grades in the classes I liked. I hadn’t yet learned life doesn’t just give us classes we like.

I worked hard for my college education; one semester I worked sixty hours between three jobs and took nineteen credit hours at school. I couldn’t keep that pace for long, but I always worked full time and took a full load of classes. I enjoyed learning.

I started my college missions’ class with anticipation. I’m fascinated with biography and expected to learn about heroic lives. Instead, I found long lists of facts and figures to memorize: how long had this and that mission been in this and that country and how many missionaries did they have here and there?

“It’s a sin!” I complained to John. “That class should motivate people to go into missions not bore them to death!”

I dropped missions with a WF—withdraw failing. Twice.

In our last year of college John said, “You do know that missions is a required class, right? You can’t graduate without it.”

“What?!”

Back I went to missions’ class, this time expecting our first baby, but my attitude hadn’t improved. Looking back, I’m sure the problem was me, not the class. Many fine missionaries came out of that class.

I barely passed missions, but our first baby and I got our diploma two months before she was born.

Recently I flunked something else, R-chop chemotherapy. R-chop is an acronym for a combination of chemo drugs given to fight cancer. I put up with all the nasty chemo side effects, confident it would work. I’d never heard of it not working.

Sometimes chemotherapy doesn’t work, and it didn’t work on me. Morticia, the name I’ve given my lymphoma lung tumor, had the nerve to grow during those brutal treatments. Like a giant Pac-Man, she gobbled up that chemo for lunch.

Another big red F for me, I failed chemotherapy!

Next came radiation treatments, but my doctor stopped those early when they affected my esophagus. So, I flunked radiation too!

I love the crafty sign at the radiation check in desk at the University of Michigan Hospital. It says “hope.”

John and I have been quoting a college acquaintance of ours who recently died of lymphoma: “Now is the time to practice our theology.”

What theology? We believe God loves us and we can trust Him in the dark, and that gives us hope.

Darkness is a test of faith, and one I don’t want to flunk, but sometimes I do, for a minute or two.

In the middle of the night I sometimes whisper, “God, are you even here?”

The answer comes, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” –Hebrews 13:5

God is with me while I wait for the doctors to decide what to try now.

I don’t know what comes next for me; you don’t know what comes next for you. But the big test is coming for all of us, you know, the one we can’t afford to flunk because our eternity depends on it.

That test has just one question: Why should God let me into heaven?

I can never be enough or do enough to meet God’s standards, and I’m glad I don’t even have to try. As my substitute, Jesus lived the life I should have lived and died the death I deserved. Good news! That’s true for you too.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9

I’ve flunked a few things in my time; reading, Latin, chemistry, missions, chemotherapy, and radiation. I passed my driver’s test only because an angel with a golden trumpet tucked under his arm swooped out of the sky and parallel parked the car for me. Don’t laugh; it’s the one and only time I ever managed that feat. If it wasn’t an angel with a golden trumpet, what was it?

I don’t know how soon I’ll knock on heaven’s gate, but if Peter or someone asks me, “Why should we let the likes of you into a place like this?” I know the answer; I’m jumping up and down like a kid because I know the answer, and I pray you do too!

Let me in because Jesus paid it all! Eternal life, joy, and happiness are mine because I repented of my sin, turned to God, and accepted His gift of salvation!

Then, that beautiful gate will swing wide, and I’ll find all the love and joy I’ve ever lost and more than I can imagine besides!

Maybe the angel with the golden trumpet will proclaim, “Here she is, the girl who flunked a few too many tests on earth, but she passed life’s final exam!”

Please, be ready to pass life’s final exam! I really want to spend eternity with all the people I love, no one missing from the joyful circle.