not His Will

trFor the past two and a half months, we've played a waiting game with the admissions committee at B's top choice of law school.  We've flirted with the possibilities of enrolling, moving, finding a new apartment, all of those things that come with transitions and new changes.  In my head danced around ideas and fantasies of what these next years at this law school would be like - living in a small apartment off-campus, B going to school, I working to support us, trying to stay thrifty in the one-income household but probably splurging for some favorite things here and there.  Maybe, just maybe, God would also bless us with our first child during B's tenure at this law school.  The possibilities, the dreams, the hopes - they were endless.  And I, deep in my heart of hearts, believed that we'd be getting a big, fat, acceptance letter sometime this summer, and all those dreams would become our reality.  

Yesterday afternoon, as casually as we had received the e-mail about B's spot on the wait list, we received word that there was no way the admissions committee could offer him a spot in the class of 2013.  The dean of admissions rambled off all the generalizing phrases - we had a lot of qualified applicants, and it hurts us to have to turn you away, all of the same, redundant words that really just mean: we can't let you in.  It was the simplest of messages - and I peered over B's shoulder as he opened the e-mail, and my heart just sank, and the tears flowed like rain.  

And for the next half hour I acted like a stubborn, snotty child - angry at the committee, hurt by their triteness in the e-mail, despondent that what had seemed so real had been snatched away in a matter of seconds, and so very devastated for B.  We had just been talking on the way to get the car an oil change that B had felt pretty good about his chances, just an hour or so earlier.  We had legions of people praying for us, praying that God's Will would be this school.  We were so ready to move on with our lives, to get off this pause button of applications and forge onward, toward careers and grownup things.  How had it gone so very different, in just a matter of minutes?  What did this now mean for his chances at the four schools from which we still await a response?  Would we be subject to additional rejections?  My head started spinning with all of these questions, and I grew more frustrated.  Eventually, my poor husband, the one who had actually suffered this rejection, had to comfort me, when it was really I who should have been doing that for him in the first place. 


And then we talked it out.  Where do we go from here?  What happens if B doesn't get in this year?  And most importantly - what is God really asking of us in this?  That is a question that I don't often like to ask.  There were times yesterday where I was upset with God, frustrated at His Will, so painfully before us.  And in those painful moments, my conscience hit me like a ton of bricks....


God will work in this situation, to bring about His glory.  

No matter how painful, how frustrating, how maddening all of this is, God will use this to glorify Himself.  

My only prayer is that I can remember this as we wait for the next month - hoping, wondering, dreaming about what the next academic year will bring us.