Blog Post

I Don’t Want to Take the LSAT (But I’m Doing It Anyway)

August 3, 2025 Foster Care, imperfection, Journey to Law School, Trust, trying hard by Elizabeth Norton Gray

I’ve been putting off registering for the LSATS for weeks! Scratch that. Months.

Every time I hear the word LSAT, I want to run. I don’t scare easily but I am terrified. This test isn’t just a few hours in a classroom with a number two pencil! For me, it’s a mountain or an inevitable scary shadow that follows me everywhere and I fear I am having a Jonah moment!

I am terrified. Terrified I’m not smart enough. Terrified I won’t measure up. Terrified I’ll fail and that it will confirm every quiet doubt I’ve ever carried. I also am in dread for the amount of work ahead of me.

I’m not saying this for pity.

I’m saying it because someone else might need to hear it:

Sometimes, obedience doesn’t look like confidence. Sometimes, it looks like shaking knees, a cluttered desk, and a whispered prayer that sounds a lot like, “Lord, are you sure about this?” and if I want to be authentic with you that is where I am at.

I have always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Quietly. Never telling a soul because I was told I wasn’t “the college type!” I hadn’t met my driving force yet and Oh how when I did, everything changed.

I don’t want my words to sound righteous. I don’t have a direct line to God where he fills me in on his will but leaves everyone else in the dark. But God is calling me in this direction, Not through lightning bolts or burning bushes. Just a growing burden……and ohhhh the burden is so heavy.

For justice for kids in the system. For the voiceless. For Justice for kids that I saw being sold.

It’s a whisper I couldn’t ignore. So today I registered. I did a lot of complaining and crying this week simply because this work (the studying and exams and papers) isn’t something I WANT to do.

I Keep Thinking About Jonah. How he ran and how I wish I could run. How I wish I could go back to a normal 9-5 and be a person that people could get bored with. I would love someone, for once, to say “What’s New?” and I honestly answer, “NOTHING!” with a jubilant attitude.

I have been thinking about how Jonah said “no thanks” and hopped a ship in the opposite direction.

**(Actual footage from earlier this week)**

I’ve thought about doing just that. What could be my ship? A plane to Italy? A bottle of wine to drink the night away? A busy city where I never am in the quiet enough to hear my own thoughts/memories/dreams/hopes for the children of WES. A want to get on a boat and escape the history and memories of what I saw 2 miles from my house.

But I’ve lived long enough to know….

I don’t want to end up in the belly of a whale because I said no to what God is clearly asking of me.

I Don’t Know How This Will Go. I don’t know if I will make it to the finish line. My goal is lofty and my brain is old.

I don’t know if I’ll pass the first time or the seventh for that matter. Even if I do pass, is my brain capable of the next task?

I don’t know if I’ll cry through half the test.

But I do know this:

God’s not asking me to be perfect. He’s just asking me to show up.

So I will. (My test is scheduled for January) I will show up with my flashcards, my fear, my library books and my faith.

Following God’s plan for my life isn’t easy.

But it’s still obedience. I have never really been great at following authority. But here I am! I am in surrender because I know without the hope that God provides, this path that he is pulling me on, I would likely be a broken drunk, high on despair and deep in depression of a huge whale. I would much rather be terrified in the will of God than there. So no boat for me. I am not running away. I am moving forward.