Broke through the first barrier

"Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear." ~ Isaiah 65:24

On Day 5 of our church's annual Prayer & Fasting, I received this e-mail:

I am happy to inform you that your application for a ... Graduate Degree Fellowship has been reviewed by the Center’s Degree Fellowship Committee and has passed the initial screening phase.

Your application will now undergo the following phases of the competition. In the second screening phase, your application will be reviewed by the University ... Graduate Division to determine whether or not you meet their admission requirements. Applications successfully reviewed by the Graduate Division will then be sent to the respective graduate field of study for their review in the third phase of the selection process. In the fourth phase, the Center’s ... Selection Committee will review the final pool of applications in late-March and will announce the award decisions no later than April 1, 2012.

As part of the final review process, we will also be reviewing candidates for ... Alumni Scholar Awards to qualified students who are not awarded a Graduate Degree Fellowship. Criteria for an ... Alumni Scholar Award include financial need, community involvement, leadership potential and academic achievement.

No further correspondence regarding the status of your application will be forthcoming until the award decisions are made and announced.

Glory to God! You Who Promised are faithful.

Pressing on toward the goal

In December, I began to entertain doubts, the most disturbing of which was whether or not I chose a battle that God wanted me to fight. Before I went to bed on December 29, I was led to Psalm 143, and as I got to verse 8,  my spirit was stirred. It was a strange emotion. It wasn't exactly hope or happiness, but it was a good feeling. It's the same kind of feeling you'd normally get when someone else, someone who doesn't know you, suddenly describes the same circumstance that you're in, and speaks of it so positively it becomes contagious:

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

I was busy the next day, shopping for New Year's Eve dinner with my family that it was already late at night when I got to check my e-mail. It came from Hawai'i, telling me that my application documents have already been verified and are complete. I checked the date and time it was sent. It was that morning.