For A Moment Like This

Just got off the phone with a parent, with whom I got to share the news that her daughter was admitted.

Now, normally, I get a dull, "Oh cool....".
Sometimes, I get "AHHHHH!!! AWESOME!"

But other times, I get to make calls like this one.
When a student is not, for one reason or another, able to meet our admissions standards, but their heart is set on us (and, let's be real, we're usually pretty bonded and set on them, too), we put them to an admissions committee.

There is paperwork, references, and a formal proposition by their loving admissions counselor (*ahem*) to a committee.

And sometimes, we get a yes.

Then, after months of testing and re-testing, homework and extra credit and tutors, prayer, tears, and anxiety, I have the great honor and privilege of ending it with one phone call, one yes.

How many times have we all been given a no when we so desperately needed a yes? How many times were we not given grace? How many times were we failed to be believed in? How many times have we thought to ourselves, "If they would just give me a chance!"

Calls like these leave us both in tears of thankfulness, tears of relief, tears from all the nos past and all the hope that comes with the present yes.

Calls like these make everything worth it.
All the "image" alterations, all the Arkansas, all the residual culture shock and missing my friends and feeling like I don't quite fit. All of that becomes worth it, and I remember, once again, that it is by the grace of God that I was brought here.

He is good.
All the time.