It isn't just with programming, though. It's with all of the things I do in life that are wonderfully hard. I start out onto these mind-bending paths confidently, courageously, and then I hesitate. Still I wonder what someone thinks when I tell them that I can read all of those languages, or that I have done so many things in my life. I often think they must wonder if I am a compulsive liar, because I would be inclined to think this of someone listening to me. And every so often, when I start reading a new document in another language, or try to do something hard, I think, "Maybe I can't. Maybe I just made it up in my mind and I can't really do this after all. Maybe I just imagined I could do this."
That is my funny phenomenon. My mother says I am fearless, and some others may have said the same, and yet I hesitate, I doubt, I almost bail, and I see fear towering before me like an enormous mountain with sheer cliffs and unreachable peaks. For that moment I am defeated, but in the very instant that defeat overtakes me I climb to my feet. I look fear in the eyes and I charge forward as if the hand of God has taken hold of my own. I press forward, pretending that the fear isn't there and the chance of failure is an impossibility when these two stand at sentinels to my journey's portal. Then somewhere on the other side, I actually achieve what I set out to do and I quietly give thanks where thanks is due, knowing full well that my own measly effort only got me a tiny portion of the way.
It happened half way through cutting the absolute black granite for my countertops. I looked at $1000 worth of stone slabs and doubted. It happened when I bought a book on how to build a tiny square stained glass window with a trace-and-cut pattern and figured I could use the same principles to build a 4' semi-circle window strictly from imagination. It has happened when someone has hands me a document in another language to translate. I think, what am I doing? Am I a tiny bit crazy? Am I delusional? Who am I to think I can do this? And who am I to think I can get a Master's Degree in Computer Science?
And nobody ever sees the ice cold fear that grips my heart in those moments because somehow I dare just a little more than I ever thought I could and somehow, by the Grace of God, that tiny little spark of belief pushes me one step further than I thought I could go. The fearless are those who have encountered and confronted fear so many times on life's journeys that they know he has no power over the determined and steadfast soul.
13 programs. I can do this. 13 programs before Sunday, and two days lost to illness, and one lesson on Johnathan and David on Sunday and one talk in Church on Father's Day, and one Father's Day meal for the family, and I think I can... I HOPE I can do it all, and if he wills it, then I will.
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