I almost failed nursing school three times.

And, no, I don’t mean that I was struggling through the material and barely passed a test.

I mean that I would get to the end of a class, complete some giant paper, presentation, or assessment…

And discover that somehow I had misunderstood the assignment.

If it had only happened once, I could have probably written it off as a picky professor or a tough course.

One professor looked at a paper I’d written and essentially told me:

“It’s not wrong…but it’s not right.”

She gave me the minimum grade she could give me and still allow me to pass.

The second time, I completed an assignment in a way that technically met the rubric, but apparently wasn’t the way the professor expected me to do it.

When I tried to explain why I made the choices I did (aka how I had understood the assignment), she interpreted my response as “disrespectful.”

She couldn’t take points away from the actual work… so she took away my participation points instead.

I finished the class with a 79.5 (yup, a B- is the lowest grade you can get in grad school without failing! 😂)

But the third time is the one I still think about.

I had spent WEEKS preparing for an advanced health assessment practical exam.

We were explicitly told there were four categories of cases we could receive:

Cardiovascular. Respiratory. Musculoskeletal. Nervous system.

Let me tell you, I knew those cases BACKWARD AND FORWARD.

Then assessment day came.

Because there was an odd number of people in my group, instead of having another student act as my “patient”, I ended up having to do my assessment on one of the Assistant Deans (no pressure, ya’ll)

I started working through her case…and nothing made sense.

I knew what I was looking for, and I also knew that none of the diagnoses I was supposed to be choosing from actually fit what I was seeing.

Eventually I gave my three best diagnoses, knowing all the while they HAD to be wrong.

The assistant dean then said they were going to have to fail me based on my improper diagnosis.

Thankfully, my teacher (and later mentor) was in the room, and she was shocked because she knew that I knew my stuff!

She immediately asked: “Wait. Why are we failing her?”

They explained that I hadn’t gotten the diagnosis right, so my advisor asked what case I’d been given.

And do you know what they had assigned me to diagnose?

A thyroid problem.

In case you’re not in the medical field- that’s NOT a cardiovascular problem; it’s an endocrine problem with some cardiovascular side effects.

It was a case I had NEVER been told to prepare for.

My professor stepped in and said, essentially, No. I didn’t tell my students this was an option. Let’s sit down with her right now and see what she actually knows.

So they did.

They started asking me questions- and when they opened the possibility that the diagnosis could exist outside the four categories I’d been given, I confidently told them I would pursue a thyroid workup and explained exactly why.

Once again, I knew the material, but I’d misunderstood the container.

And once again, they gave me the minimum passing grade and let me move forward.

Here’s the best part of this story:

Years later, something pretty remarkable happened.

I was hired as a professor… at the exact same university, in the same nursing program, to teach the EXACT same health assessment course.

And that professor who had advocated for me when I was a student?

She told me that she wanted my help making sure other students had room to think differently.

That mission became one of my favorite parts of teaching.

I wanted students to understand the nuance and to learn how to think instead of simply memorizing the “right” answer.

I felt passionate about creating paths for the students whose brains got to the right answers by taking unconditional paths.

If you see yourself in my story, I want you to know:

Sometimes we spend YEARS trying to correct something about ourselves because it doesn’t seem to fit what we’ve been told is the “right” way to speak, or think, or act, or connect, or grow.

We get tired of hearing how we’re too sensitive, too direct, too analytical, too intense, too emotional, or too practical.

We begin to feel ashamed when people harp on how we’re too concerned about doing things correctly, too focused on growth, too quick to take charge, or too picky about how resources are used.

We shut ourselves down after hearing over and over how we ask too many questions, come up with too many ideas, or talk too much instead of listening.

We diminish and distort ourselves because we believe the lie that we’re too much (and also somehow never quite enough.)

And after enough years of negative feedback about how others think we should be, we can start assuming the friction tells us something objectively true about who we are.

This is where I want to call you in with a LOT of love:

What if you’ve spent years trying to become easier to fit into containers God never asked you to fit inside?

And also…

What if some of the things you currently call “just the way I am” genuinely DO need formation?

Because both can be true.

Some of us have diminished parts of our gifting because we learned they were inconvenient, unwelcome, misunderstood, or “too much.”

Some of us have distorted incredible gifts because pain, pressure, fear, pride, responsibility, or survival shaped the way we learned to express them.

Some of us have gifts that desperately need development.

And some of us are using beautiful God-given gifts in places He is no longer asking us to use them.

This is why I care so much about going deeper than:

“Cool! I’m a ______ gift.”

And I also I don’t want you to shove yourself into another container, or hand you another label that gives you permission to remain exactly as you are.

I want you to become increasingly capable of seeing yourself clearly enough to ask:

God, what have You actually entrusted to me?

What has happened to it along the way?

What in me needs to be strengthened?

What needs healing?

What needs practice?

What needs surrender?

And how are You asking me to use it now?

That work can be uncomfortable.

Because sometimes it’s easier to keep telling ourselves:

This is just how I am.

Or:

I’m already successful.

Or:

I’ve done plenty of personal development.

Or:

I know myself pretty well.

Or even:

I know my gift.

Friend…

knowing is the beginning.

And if something in you keeps wondering whether there is more freedom, maturity, joy, capacity, or GOOD fruit available in the way you lead and live…

I want you to take that seriously.

Grow In Your Gifts™ begins Wednesday.

For seven weeks, we’re creating space to examine how your gifts are actually functioning in your real life—and to intentionally practice developing them in greater alignment with who God created you to be and what He is asking of you now.

You do not need to arrive fully formed.

That’s kind of the point. 😂

You just need to be willing to

1) Examine where others have decided you’re misunderstanding the assignment

2) Figure out what that feedback REALLY means, and use it to grow more deeply into who God made you to be.

​JOIN GROW IN YOUR GIFTS™​

Faithfully rooting for you,

Lee

P.S. If you’re reading this whole email thinking, Lee, I don’t even know which gift we’re talking about yet 😂, start with the free Primary Motivational Gift Assessment here: DISCOVER YOUR PRIMARY MOTIVATIONAL GIFT.