Madam Anatomy

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, December 16.

By Andrew McChesney

A

bigail didn’t know what to do.

More than anything, she wanted to become a nurse.

But she needed to work to pay for her studies, and she didn’t seem to have enough time to prepare for her classes.

She had just started her first year at the Seventh-day Adventist Nursing and Midwifery Training College in the West African country of Ghana.

The anatomy and physiology class was especially difficult.

In the evenings, Abigail cried because she couldn’t understand anatomy and physiology.

When she woke up in the morning, she cried again.

She was enrolled in eight classes, and her workload left little time for homework. She desperately prayed to God to help her pass her classes, especially anatomy and physiology.

After giving the first quiz, the teacher told the anatomy and physiology class, “The highest score was 75 percent.”

Abigail sighed and thought, “Augh, then I got 35 percent.”

The teacher didn’t say who had received the top grade.

The next day, when the graded quizzes were returned to students, Abigail saw that she had received 75 percent. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

A classmate sitting nearby whispered, “What did you get?”

Abigail showed her the paper.

“So, you are the one who scored the highest!” the classmate exclaimed.

Abigail was embarrassed. “Please, don’t tell anyone,” she said.

“OK, I won’t,” she said.

Abigail’s secret was revealed to the class when she got 100 percent on the midterm exam.

The teacher addressed her in front of the class.

“You scored the highest on the first quiz,” he said. “You scored the highest on the second quiz. Now you have 100 percent on the midterm. Don’t hide anymore in class. When I ask questions, feel free to answer them.”

Abigail started speaking up in class. When the teacher asked a question, she didn’t mind answering. Sometimes she didn’t even raise her hand and just answered.

Before long, her classmates gave her a nickname, “Madam Anatomy.” Abigail didn’t mind her new name. She just smiled when her classmates called her Madam Anatomy. She smiled even bigger when she got back her final exam in the class. It was a perfect score.

Abigail credits God for helping in anatomy and physiology, and all of her classes. Today, she is halfway through her three years of nursing studies and has the highest cumulative grade point average of any student in the college. She also has received a partial scholarship, taking off some of the pressure to work.

“It’s God,” she said. “It’s not me. It’s God.”

After attending a week of spiritual emphasis on campus, Abigail has decided that she would like to get baptized and join the Adventist Church. She loves God with all her heart and wants to live for Him.

But she faces resistance at home. A close relative who belongs to another denomination has disparaged her desire, calling it a sin.

Abigail doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know whom she can turn to except God. She is praying for God to help. She is sure that the God who helped her get good grades will help her serve Him faithfully now and forevermore.

Pray for Abigail as she seeks God’s will in her life. Pray for all 770 students at the Seventh-day Adventist Nursing and Midwifery Training College. Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help expand the college, which opened with 22 students in 2015, with new classrooms and dormitories. Demand far exceeds available openings at the college, where only 30 percent of the students are Adventists. Thank you for your generous Thirteenth Sabbath Offering on December 30.