Dear Ms. Lere,

I checked my email about 100 times during the day on Monday. Each time my heart was pounding. All month I have been waiting to find out if I had been accepted or waitlisted at GWU. My interview was on the 6th, and since that morning I had been counting down the days until my answer would come on the 22nd. Except that the answer didn't come. I had expected to hear a yes or a no by the end of my work day but my inbox sat empty. I got home and re-read the letter given to us about the admission offer process. It turns out they were STARTING to notify on the 22nd. If we hadn't heard by the 29th, we were instructed to contact the university. Ugh. ANOTHER week. I was relieved that the fact that I hadn't heard by the end of the day on Monday could only mean bad news but not excited at the prospect of waiting. Some more.

Tuesday came. Tuesday went. There was nothing in my inbox. When the clock struck 9 pm in England (closing time of the office in DC), I decided that they would have been able to notify the 35 individuals who were being offered places by the end of the day on Tuesday. I was okay with this. I had spent the previous week focusing on all of the positive things about NOT going to DC (namely, being home when Philip returns from the deployment and getting to travel for the two months before we PCS). I had actually got myself quite excited about it.

I remember the week after I got home from DC. I was listening to a Joyce Meyer message my mum sent me and she said, "Sometimes you have to be willing to accept a 'no' before He will give you a 'yes'." I had a bit of a sense of that feeling of "if this doesn't happen, that will be okay" as I walked out of the building from my interview. I definitely was there the couple of days before the decision came as I tried very hard to brace myself for the pain of intense disappointment.
On Tuesday night I actually made a call to my "Plan B" school in DC to get the ball rolling with that admission.

Wednesday I had a wild day at work. In five minutes that I had between a couple of patients I checked my email. My heart pounded as I opened an email from GW and read the words, "Dear Ms. Lere. . ." This was it. I was SHOCKED at the sentence that followed: "I am pleased to offer you admission to the GWU Professional Psychology Program for the Fall 2010."

I was dumbfounded. And excited. And shocked. And elated. I forwarded the message to Philip and our parents right away.

In a Beth Moore study that I've been doing recently I was struck by Beth explaining the "glory" of God being the demonstration of God's "Godness" when nothing else can explain what has happened. After my rocky interview experience, the ONLY way for me to explain the acceptance offer is to point to God's hand in the decision. It's not that this was even a matter of this not being by my merit alone. This was not by my merit AT ALL.

In our Christmas letter I stated, "2010 will be a year marked by challenge and transition in the Lere story, yet it is our sincere and most solemn prayer that at the bottom of each day the initials SDG can be engraved. It is our desire that whatever is asked of us in the coming year will be done Soli Deo Gloria as it is Christ’s grace alone that will continue to carry us on this beautiful journey." My GWU acceptance is a 2010 remembrance stone in our journey of God's faithfulness. It is an incredible picture of God's glory exhibited in our life.

As you know, acceptance is one of several hurdles that must be overcome in order to make the GWU doctorate dream a reality. The next HUGE hurdle is Philip receiving an assignment that is compatible with this opportunity. This, again, is something that can ONLY happen by the grace of God as the government isn't known for giving people what they want or what works best for them personally. We know that the GW door may still be closed. And that will be okay, because we know that it is a Sovereign obviously opening or closing this door.

So now, it's back to the waiting game. . .