Hey, Jason. I noticed a couple grammatical errors. I'm not in college, and haven't even started any English for my senior year.

I shakily reach for my bow, praising God for the opportunity to be in my favorite place in the world: my deer stand.

I reckon a dash would serve better than a colon. General a dash seperates a sentence from further information. The fragment, "my deer stand," is providing additional information pertaining to your favorite place in the world. Colons usually seperate a list of items, such as ingredients. Also, the first letter of the first word after a colon is supposed to be capitalized.

When my stress level reaches maximum, I am overcome with worry, and I don’t think I can cope any longer....I sit down and relax, take a deep breathe, close my eyes, and travel back to that place.

When using such dots, four indicate the end of a sentence, three indicate a continuation. They're often used in quations indication there was more said that isn't being noted. I reckon a semi-colon has more place though.

I'm not trying to insult your intellect or massively crtique your essay, it was cool. Some of those are rather elementary rules of grammar. At the collegiate level, it's stuff like that that messes up peoples' grades, not so much the subject matter. So if you're not happy with your grade, ask your teacher the reasons it was marked down. If, after that, you feel you were slided, go above her head.

God bless,
Brandan