Hello
everyone!
It has been too long because a good story
takes a long time to package up. I wanna share with you an amazing story God is
doing my professional pursuit towards graduate school that also tested my
heart.
Arriving back to the US, I
had a dilemma: set my mind on work or graduate school. One day, I was going to
two meetings that really defined my moment of me really needing to decide. One
was a national engineering competition that was truely perfect for a boost in
the working world (always #1, and exposure to the world) or stick with a cut of
the cutting edge of research and propel me to grad school. That evening I
talked it out with my family and concluded that I like to do grad school. Peace
of mind.. ahhh. And my mom told me after my conclusion that she prayed about
this in the morning and she does not know anything about my
schedule!
About a month later, I'm already working in
the lab. My mentor told me that there is a year position to take up that was
dropped by an applicant to USIRP (Undergraduate Student In Research Program)
that had its deadline due a month earlier. So I was a month too late. USIRP
provides classes that basically help develop the tools to be a graduate student
like speaking and writing. But the mentor likes to keep that position out of
the pride of our field. It ended up that another more qualified one was not
willing to take the commitment. So I took it without the application processes!
It was as if I came into the lab and it fell
into my lap! God is worthy of praise. Why does he care to push me
along into my already made decision? :) God
loves me of course! Hallelujah.
This encouraged me to apply for the Mary
Gates Research Scholarship which would pay for my whole year’s tuition. I
started really early in the summer ‘06 to pass it up in October. During the
wait period, I felt that I’ll really get it (I told a few people to already
thank Him). I was almost thankful for the whole process. But God made me wait:
the acceptance letter did not come for another week. During the weekend part of
that week, I went to a wonderful praise night and just usual Sunday service.
The theme for praise night was about putting everything in the light of
eternity. The words were meaning nothing to me but still God spoke through
them: I judged that the scholarship is the
right method to lead me further into a successful graduate career. I
figured that the name of this scholarship is good weight and it will grant me
for freedom to wherever God wants be to do. But God did not tell me that, I
told myself that God needs to help me—“He promised to let me prosper”. Heh heh…
yeah. All for me.
So I repented from that heart. God does not promise that thing exclusively. But He
definitely does great and good things anyways. It is not that He does not want
me to have it, but it is how I receive it. If I have not waited, I
would have missed the whole point if I received the letter on time! I chatted
with a friend:
“I would have missed the point if the Mary
Gates scholarship gave it to me this week…so I await next week…but more with
open hands than a child trying to jump and reach and grab it…
:)”
Then the Sunday service: all about being
thankful for everything. Simple but I totally received that message! So
thankful!
Monday: “We are pleased to inform
you that you have been named a Mary Gates Scholar with the award of a Mary Gates
Endowment for Students Research Scholarship.”
God is good.
Johnson Tey
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