Do you ever feel that your weaknesses, faults and mistakes are just glaring for all to see? Well, I experienced that with a lot of loud dings!

It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. After years of being out of school, I decided to take some college courses at the young age of 40! Some of the classes that I decided to take were in the computer field.

When I started the computer classes, I knew nothing about computers. The only mouse I knew about was the small, beady-eyed creature that I would never consider holding in my hand. So here I was, in college for the first time, told to hold on to the mouse and learn all I could about PowerPoint, Word, Excel and Access. This was all jammed into that one short semester!

After a few short weeks, it was time for my first exam. This was unlike any other test I had ever taken. On a written test, if you do not know the answer to a question, then only you and the professor know. But not with this computer exam! During this exam, every time I made a mistake, the computer would ding, and ding loudly! The whole class heard it!

It was a vicious cycle! The more the computer dinged to announce to the whole class, "she got it wrong again," the more stressed I became. And the more stressed I became, the more wrong answers I chose, and, of course, the more dings I heard!

I felt every eye was staring at me, and I was so afraid to look up to see if the professor was glaring at me—for I heard no one else's computer dinging. I wanted so badly to just get up and run out of that class, never to return.

I did not give in to my strong impulse to run out, but I realized then and there that all those dings meant I had some serious work to do to learn the computer. I stayed with it, and I studied harder so my computer would not ding. In the end, I passed that class!

Our Christian lives can sometimes seem like we are in that class taking a not-so-silent exam. Sometimes our flaws and sins are obvious to everyone. It can be very humbling.

"Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11).

We will be uncomfortable for a moment, as I was in that class, as our flaws are exposed, but if we do not run but simply humble ourselves in the Master's hands and lay all those sins and flaws at God's feet, He will help us. Through endurance and God's help, we will master all those dings and flaws.