Editor's Note He’s changed me By Darcy L. Fargo

June 29, 2022

I cried when I received the essay back from my professor.

It was the first essay I had to write for an advanced French course. It was my first essay written entirely in French.

I worked hard on the assignment. Writing essays in English was always easy for me. This was not easy.
So, when I received the graded paper back from my professor and saw a large red “C” on the top, I cried. It was my first ever C.

My friends thought it was funny.

“Everyone gets a C at some point,” they told me. “Cs get degrees.”

They started pronouncing my name with extra emphasis on the last syllable. For a week or two, I was “Dar-Cee.”

I thought of that as I cried over another middle-of-the-road grade this week. This time, I was crying because my son, Jacob, scored a 75 on his biology Regents, his first ever Regents exam, an test he took without any accommodations.

This time, my tears over the mediocre grade were tears of joy. As I’ve mentioned before in this space, Jacob – we call him Jake – is on the autism spectrum. He’s worked hard to reach a level where he can move through his education relatively independently. Though he studied for hours, Jake thought he had failed the test. His joy at the passing grade contributed to my tears. It was beautiful.

Jake is a gift from God in more ways than I can count.

While I’m certain God put this child in my life and in my care for a lot of reasons, I’m confident one of those reasons was to help at least relax my tendency toward perfectionism. Through Jake, God has taught me the importance of little gains, little victories and less-than-perfect progress. Through Jake, God has changed my perspective.

It’s amazing how God does that. He gives us the people, circumstances and graces we need in our lives to grow into who He is calling us to be. He changes us.

He’s changed me into a person who loves Cs.