Photoessay #2023 - The Lord works in mysterious ways

My mother used to say that.  The Lord works in mysterious ways.  I do believe in the power of the unseen hand, the higher power.  That things happen for a reason even if we can't know why.

So my daughter is forging ahead.  She wants to go to Occupational Therapy school, it's been her goal for over two years.  And she has worked hard, working volunteer jobs in the field, taking an array of prerequisite science classes that she would never have considered before.  Last year, she applied two places and did not get in at either.  Competition is fierce.  For example, the University of Washington, in their rejection letter cited that they had over 900 applications for their 32 seats in the program.

This year, she went all out.  I encouraged her to cast her net widely applying to any two year program at an accredited school that did not require the GRE.  She sharpened up her essay and went for it.  Previously, she probably would not have considered schools far away.  "All I need is one yes," she said.  And the interviews, in the last several months, she's traveled to four interviews.

And this week, she got in!!  To a place I would least expect.  University of Alabama, Birmingham.  The epitome of the Deep South to my ignorant self.  Birmingham, Alabama?  Really?

My doctor murmurs, maybe the South has something to teach her.  There  must be some reason, an unseen hand that sends her on this journey to places scarcely known.  She's forging on, she's going to do it, bless her heart.

I'm buying her a t-shirt.  Hmmm, green and gold, familiar colors to her high school and undergrad college.  It's a sign....

Picture taken from http://uniquetxmurals.wordpress.com/ without permission.  But the author of this blog had an interesting quote from Orison Swett Marsden who I have never heard of but is from that 19th century New England that I keep chasing after.

The days come to us like friends in disguise, bringing priceless gifts from an unseen hand; but, if we do not use them, they are borne silently away, never to return. Each successive morning new gifts are brought, but if we failed to accept those that were brought yesterday and the day before, we become less and less able to turn them to account, until the ability to appreciate and utilize them is exhausted. Wisely was it said that lost wealth may be regained by industry and economy, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but lost time is gone forever. – Excerpt from the book “Pushing to the Front” by Orison Swett Marden