The GRE vs. "Go and I Will Be With You!"

In early spring of 1985 a threefold word came together. I wrote, “In the last two weeks it is coming into focus that I need to go back to school for a graduate program and degree. Bill (husband), Dow (pastor) and Tim (principal) all came to me independently and told me they thought graduate school was next for me.” Part of my heart was full of fear that I’d never pass the GRE exam to get in to University of Kentucky (after all, I was was almost 40 years old!), but the other part believed I needed to enlarge my understanding of reading as an area God wanted to give me more revelation on. And the Lord told me, “Go and I will be with you. If you aren’t to be there, you will know; and if you are, you will ‘feel my pleasure as you run.’ Let that be your clue and your assurance. I will be with you. You are not going alone.”

So I took the GRE and wrote that it was “devastating. It was hard and I blanked out. The questions didn’t make sense except for math, which is the opposite of what I expected. Sunday in worship the Lord made me aware that the deposit in me and His gifting is not dependent on the GRE or any tests, Just His Spirit. Not by might, or by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.”


I cried for half an hour after the tests, sure I had not passed. But pass I did and was invited to join the graduate program in reading in the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. My first advisor was Dr. Mary Shake, a wonderful mentor, taking a newbie like me and helping integrate me into the academic world.

After being accepted at UK, I was offered a graduate assistant job, but I wrote that “I can’t do this if I teach, which is where I need to be for now.” So I continued teaching for another two years while completing my master’s degree in reading education.

During this time I was also invited to come teach on reading at a Christian education conference being held in Lexington. It was an awesome time and God blessed my sharing with teachers I’d never met before. It was a confirmation that I was to go on and learn more. I also began to get invitations from around the country, and even to England and Canada, to come teach their teachers. God was opening up more doors than I ever imagined.


But grad school was tough. I had always loved writing, but writing for academia is another whole ball game. Learning to write this way was not easy. Friend Dawn Kotapish said recently what I felt and why I'm writing this blog: I was "one fated to digest life slowly, only by writing about it first." But grad school wouldn't let that be the only writing I would do.

Another unexpected word from the Lord came that I didn’t understand. Remember, we had just moved from Oklahoma a year or two ago? The word came in a dream, “Your next move will be to Mobile.” There was no explanation and no apprehension in the word and even excitement I didn’t understand. Little did I know how that word would come to pass over five years later. “We shared the word with Dow and Lois and they didn’t laugh, but seriously received it. It is God who moves us on in His purposes and time.”


While God was bringing people in to the church, He was also sending others out. Paul Petrie, pastor of the church, announced his call to Europe and Africa and how they planned to move from Lexington to Brussels, Belgium. While it was a time of celebration in God’s call on him and Rebecca and the kids, it was also about to be a huge change for the church. I would lose fellow teacher and dear friend Judy McCullough, Rebecca's sister, who would be moving to Europe with them. Below are a couple pics I took of Paul, Rebecca, with John Meadows, and this sending-out event.