The Unmaking of a Linguist

The French tapes played and I sat at my desk, pen poised and ready.  I wasn't interested in learning French back then - I was just fascinated by language and wanted to try my hand (and my ears) at creating an alphabet.  Phonemic analysis just for fun?  That's right.  A linguist in the making, clearly.

It was a long-held dream of mine: to be the linguist on a team in an unreached people group.  I went into training with the idea that one day, I'd be doing just that.  Our first semester we took a test to gauge our linguistic aptitude and help us decide whether to stay for a semester of extra linguistic training after graduation.

That test was so. much. fun.  Everything clicked and I breezed through in half the time allotted.

When I got the test back graded, I'd made only one mistake.  One mistake.  Literally the smallest mistake possible.  Like glanced-one-column-to-the-right-and-wrote-a-single-letter-wrong.

So close to perfect.

No one could deny this was how my brain was wired, that this was my calling.

At least it seemed that way.

The summer after graduation, I came back to take that semester of linguistics.  It wasn't too long into the class that I started feeling like I was in completely over my head.  My intuition didn't seem to be carrying me as far as I thought it should based on the test or previous exposure to the material.  The homework took so much out of me, both mentally and emotionally.  It was the unmaking of a linguist.

As I floundered around, I asked over and over, God, why in the world did You let me do so well on that test if the class would turn out to be such a struggle?  I don't understand.  None of this comes as a surprise to You.  I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but You did.  If You knew I would have such a hard time with this, why didn't You close the door to even come back?  Why did I have such an interest in this in the first place - wasn't it from You?  Why do You want me to go through this?

To this day, I don't fully understand what happened.  I've realized a couple things that caused me to struggle with the homework, but the story as a whole still mystifies me some times.

Perhaps God wanted to remove my pride and self-confidence in that area.  Perhaps He wanted me to get a good sense of how much I needed Him.  Or perhaps He simply wanted me to be at the MTC that extra semester so other things could happen - like the start of my connection to West Africa, or the healing of a relationship, or some further challenges to areas of legalism I was still holding onto.

It's probably all those things and more.  I doubt I'll ever fully understand this side of heaven, and that's okay.  I do know who my God is, that He is good and faithful and has a purpose for the things I don't understand.  So I leave my story with all its seeming loose ends in His hands.