Beauty Will Rise

There is a song I love called, "Beauty Will Rise". In it a family is looking forward to a wedding in the Spring after facing a horrible tragedy over the past year. Well, I haven't faced a horrible tragedy at all but instead I am facing an internal battle of trusting God in His timing and His will.

"For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Habakkuk 2:3 (ESV)"

I want to continue my college, so last July I spoke to an advisor about all of my best options for college. We agreed that my best option was to apply for Pell Grants and scholarships first, so I did just that. $7,500 later I showed back up with all the money I could find to help cover my school costs. We then discussed the option of going to school through the Main Campus of CTC, since I am a legal resident of Texas. I decided that I would rather have an online Associates degree and pay MUCH less money than get a degree through the Okinawa Campus. I left his office very encouraged and excited. I submitted my application to the online advisors and waited impatiently for a response. A few weeks later I received an email saying I needed to obtain copies off an LES (Pay stub) and my military ID in order to prove I am a military dependent, so I can get even more discounts. YAY! Free money, my favorite thing to hear. After getting the LES from the exact dates they needed and submitting it in. I impatiently waited for another few weeks for a response. Then came the day, the day that I was looking forward to so bad! I got the email and it said something along the lines of how I had been accepted, all of my financial aide had been processed and I was ready to start class on January 20th as soon as I complete my placement exam. Here I was where, I worked for months to get to and all I had left was one measly placement exam that I could pass with flying colors. I waited a couple weeks until I had a weekday off since I had plenty of time and took my test in November. I took my two hour test, and analyzed those two poems with plenty of skill to get into a community college. I then submitted my exam and came back the next week after I hadn't heard back yet. To my not-so-shocked self, my advisor told me I made a 100 on the math and my writing analysis was excellent! Yay! I was in, but why had I not received anything from main campus. Then came the surprise that ruined it all.  My advisor then told me that main campus wants me to take a placement exam that they don't offer at the Okinawa Campus. I asked him what my options were and we went to a couple other colleges and asked if they offered this placement exam to see if I could take it proctored with their college (a routine thing since we are on such a small island). After talking to them with no luck we had no idea what to do, so we hoped for the best and submitted the placement exams I had already taken in hopes they would accept them anyway. They didn't. Actually they told me that while I did an excellent job on those exams they were not the placement exam that they offer for main campus and would not do the job. By this point I was so mad I just closed the laptop and didn't think about it for a few days. How can one exam be good enough for one campus of the college but not good enough for the other campus? Now here we are at a standstill. After much prayer and discussion we decided that if this is any indication of what it's going to be like trying to communicate with people in Texas, that I should go to college at the local campus and pay quite a bit more money. Now we are at ground zero but this time with 11 days to complete what I've been working on for 6 months. Oh yes, did I mention the college is closed until January 6th, and I need it submitted by January 14th?

So, here I am, feeling like I failed, when it dawns on me. God has a plan in all of this. God is going to take care of me, if it is in His will, I will go to college come January 20th and if it isn't then we will see if it is in His will for me to go in August. Right now, I am waiting for the Beauty to Rise from all of these setbacks. I know God has something in store that is way more than I could ever imagine. He has already done so much with our life, that I never dreamed of.