Acceptance and Denial - Kerry

It was rather surreal. There on my computer screen it seemed to be saying that I had been accepted into a PhD program at the University of Edinburgh, which was obviously impossible, since I had been rejected by six other schools over the past four years. Ha. Silly me. I must be misunderstanding the box on the Euclid site that bore the words "Unconditional Offer".

But I was not misunderstanding the message. It said clearly that Edinburgh wanted me. This was huge, for me, at least.

In order to communicate the magnitude of this moment, I have to relate a few things. I graduated from Oral Roberts University in 2004 with a Master's degree in Biblical Literature, expecting to go on and pursue my doctorate soon thereafter. With a 3.93 GPA and a 1530 on my GRE (out of a possible 1600, for those who don't know), I was pretty confident that I would be accepted somewhere. But over the next few years, as I received rejection letter after rejection letter, I began to wonder if I was just deceiving myself. Maybe I was a delusional loser, one of those people who spend their entire lives trying to prove to everyone else just how smart they are, and inadvertantly doing just the opposite.

In fact, deep down I had begun to suspect that I was unnecessary. The kingdom of God didn't need me. My job was just to sit on the sidelines while the star players did their thing. I get to cheer for them and look like a team player. The voice of defeat gradually began to convince me that it was undue pride which had ever made me think that I could go and do something as exceptional as earn a PhD and become a college professor. People like me didn't do things like that. People who had money and family connections were the ones who did that. When I had thought that I had been sensing the prompting of God, I had simply been making it up. Wishful thinking. Pathetic.

But now, here was a university who wanted me. And not just any university: Edinburgh. Scotland, baby! Woot.

I called Lara first. If anyone was wanting to go to Scotland more than I was, it was Lara. You can summarize a large percentage of her life goals into two words: world travel. I could hear her doing her little happy dance, the kind she does when she is eating dark chocolate, or when she gets a bunch of paper samples. I also could have predicted the tome she brought home that night from work with all sorts of information I did and did not need to know about Edinburgh (easily 60 pages, double-sided).

As for me, I spent the next two days in a daze. I don't know how much work I actually got done. All I could think was: "Wow, someone accepted me! I going to Scotland! No, it must have been a mistake. No, it's not! Wow, someone accepted me! Man, am I hungry - where's Justin?"

No amount of denial can change the fact that God had worked things out in a way that I could not. He is good, and this blog is to be a running commentary on what He can and does do for His children. Over the next three years, Lara and I want to chronicle our experiences from acceptance to funding to traveling to studying and working to graduation and employment. For my part, I want to dedicate this blog especially to anyone who has ever thought exceptional is impossible. With God, all things are possible.

In future posts, I want to relate the financial challenges we are currently facing, as well as a more in depth look at what and why I want to study in Edinburgh.