Getting Back Up to Run

We pray and we ask God to answer our requests. Sometimes He says yes. Sometimes He says no. Sometimes, He says now is not the time. Right now, the answer to my prayers about school falls in the no/not right now category. I was rejected off the waitlist at one of my top choices. If I had gotten in, I would have found myself starting classes this morning. Instead, today found me at work, today found me coming home, today found me furiously reviewing GRE vocabulary words. You see, it's kind of like when, as a little kid, you're running and you trip. Instead of allowing yourself to lie sprawled out looking up at the sky, trying to register the force of the fall, you take a tumble, use the momentum to keep rolling and roll right back up onto your feet so you can keep running. Someone at church who knows just how badly I wanted to go to school this fall stopped to encourage me yesterday and told me how glad he was that I was so upbeat. To which I could only laugh and say that I was trying. Because, it's true. I am trying to push forward. I am trying to trust that God has a plan that I cannot understand fully at this point in time. It's possible I may never really understand why it is that I didn't get in. And yet, despite the fact that I don't understand, I'm trying to take things one step at a time, going where He leads me. And, I'm not quitting. I'll revise my plan, improve my application, and probably try again next year. Because becoming a doctor and healing the sick is still my dream. Because it's a job that I think would be worth pursuing even if there were no real financial incentive. As far as I can calculate, it's financially better for me to just stick with consulting. But, I'm not in it for the money. And I'm willing to work for it, even if it does take some time to get there. And if, after all that effort and time, I realize that becoming a doctor isn't what God wants me to do, I will have to learn to be okay with that as well. But in the meantime, I will have been running and seeking to be in the center of His will, and I will know that my life has not been wasted. So, right now, I'm trying to roll right back onto my feet and go in the direction that He leads me. And I'm actually kind of excited to see what doors He might open in the near future.