I went to bed early that night. My husband assured me that Hillary would win the election. All the early evidence supported Jim’s argument. He knows which states are blue and which states are red, and based upon past elections, he predicted how each state would vote.

I was not thrilled about either candidate, and though I took advantage of my right to express my wishes by way of voting, I knew I wouldn’t be thrilled with the results either way. I was pulling for Trump, it’s true, but not with the pride I wish I could claim. Not with as much hope as I would have liked.

This election was a downer for me in every possible way. When I compared the two candidates one filled me with fear because I simply do not trust her; the other filled me with disgust because I think he’s lived such a foolish personal life.

There is a passage that throughout the campaign continued to ring in my ears when I thought of either candidate: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (I Corinthians 1: 27-29).

I felt that if Hillary got into office it was God’s intention to punish this nation; if Trump got in it was to show this country—for better or for worse—what God can do with a fool.

If Hillary would have won, I’d be praying hard, but that doesn’t mean I’m not praying now. With the Trump victory I feel that God is giving us one more chance and that we had better take Him up on it. I wish I could be proud, and I earnestly hope and pray that Trump will make me proud. I want to write him a letter and exhort him to put on his business cap — he is good at business — and help us out of our financial crises.

I want to encourage him to surround himself with wise counselors because this job of the presidency is bigger than any thing he’s ever tackled. I want to ask him to do what he can to fix our health insurance crisis — it’s a mess —and to secure our borders; to take care of us first so that we can better help others.

I want to ask him to behave himself in the White House, to once and for all be faithful to his wedding vows. In my letter I would thank him for leading by example in refusing his salary while in the White House — would Hillary have done that for us?

And if I write a letter to Trump I think he will read it because I think that, at last, we have a leader who is so very far from perfect but who really cares what the common person thinks.

We have a leader who paid for his campaign out of his own pocket, leaving him free from obligation to special interest groups. We have a leader who is from the land of real people, rather than another politician.

We have a leader who has a lot of money because he worked hard and who has passed that work ethic on to his children. Maybe there is something he can teach the rest of us too.

What do you say we give him a chance?

-Laurie Lee,

English graduate student