Doors Closing?

Before today, I was not concerned about what I was going to do next fall. I was in the application process for two prestigious programs and felt very confident I would be accepted to both and would succeed in either one I happened to choose. Boy was I startled when I realized that I had spaced on a major part of the application process of one of them. This part of the application was a written activity and was due a week ago! Failure to complete it was “grounds for dismissal.” Drat. I wrote a very apologetic e-mail asking for another chance, but I know if I were them, I would “dismiss” me. The second application I had been “working” on for months, is due tomorrow (well, today.) I transferred to this state and to this school with the specific intention of applying for this particular program, and that was two years ago. Yet, somehow, I managed to wait until the night before to finish applying. Now, to this competitive program, my references will be late, as well as my transcripts. Double Drat. The two programs I originally thought I was a shoe-in (shoo-in?) for, may not even take a second glance at my applications before sending me a courtesy rejection letter. Sigh. Talk about getting knocked off my high horse.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about God being graceful to me. I am reminded more and more every day that there is nothing that I do that earns his grace, but that his grace is a gift, given just because He loves me, He created me, and I am His daughter. He doesn’t withdraw it when I make bad decisions, or ones that are disobedient to His word, even if I think he should.

I have also been noticing lately that God doesn’t like it when we give ourselves credit for what he has done. I was pretty confident that I would get into both programs because I deserved to, because I had worked hard to be the perfect candidate for either. That’s the wrong attitude to have. Instead, I should have been thanking God for who He made me to be and asking Him about His will for this next phase of my life. The cool thing is though, that I know that if I get accepted to either program, it was only by the grace of God, since my efforts were less than admirable. It’s up to him. He has (and has had) the power to shut or open whatever doors he wants in my life. If he wants me to get accepted, he can encourage the applicant reviewers to be merciful. If not, maybe there is something else I should be doing next year. Either way, I know that everything will be just fine.

This leaves me with a lot of questions to sort out. Alas, since it is 5:30 in the morning and I am about to finish my first awake overnight shift at work, I’d better leave it at that.  More to come later….