God has answered our prayers! Just not like we hoped. The day I wrote the post about waiting to hear the big news, about half way through the day, my son came downstairs and said, "Ok, I have an email from U of T, but I can't open it. I'm too scared!" We all screamed and joined each other in the family room, but before he opened I said, "Remember, if it's a no, we have to believe that God is at work and it will be ok." Then he opened it and within seconds, he said, "I'm not going there either...."
Those initial seconds were so hard. The floods of disappointment, sadness, near tears, washed over the whole room. We were all in shock and silence as it soaked in. All the work, all the studying, the shingles, the sacrifices, the money, the hours in filling out applications - suddenly it seemed like it was all for nothing.
After about 10 minutes, everyone sat down and all the kids prayed for him, prayed for peace and understanding that God was protecting him from something, preparing him for something and that He had his best in mind. So hard to hear. My son couldn't pray.
As the day wore on and he talked out his anger, he just couldn't understand. Then the rejection feelings came. It was seriously as if we were going through a death - he went through every stage. Shock. Anger. Grief....whatever they are, he experienced them all. I listened and encouraged him. The siblings were very sweet. He felt bad for them as he knew they had fasted and prayed for him on his behalf. He said, "It was all a waste." Nooooooooo.....
That night before I went to bed, I tried so hard to be thankful. I knew that was the right attitude to have. Then, I thought about another thought - what if I weren't just thankful, but excited. Excited that nothing makes sense! How strange! But as I thought about it, I really loved the idea. To not know or understand why something like this would happen was exactly the place God would want us to be in. That is Hebrews 11 at its finest - to believe by faith when you can't see! So I literally manipulated my thoughts to think that way and came up with the idea that this was perfect - We don't know why. We don't know what is ahead. And that is amazing, exciting and even a thrilling place to be!
The next morning, I was determined to get in the Word first thing. I was now excited to see what God would say to me. I knew He was going to say something. I read in Numbers 21 where I was in my reading and I came to the section where Israel asked King Sihon if he could pass through his kingdom. Moses promised to not touch anything, drink anything, etc....just let Israel pass. For no reason, he said no and tried to go after the Israelites instead. But that didn't go over well, Israel defeated them, no problem. In fact, Israel kind of went crazy on them and took over multiple cities and then dwelt in them to top it off. This thought came to me - My son had asked the med schools nicely, "May I please go to your med school?" And for no reason, they said, no. Just like Israel then went out and took over all the areas, it occurred to me, that's what my son has to do. He has to say, "Oh, you didn't like my first application, well, then wait till you see the second one!" He needed to fight.
Before my son experienced the rejection of the med schools, we had refused to entertain the idea of writing another MCAT, quitting at Marinland, reapplying to the schools all over. It was too much to think about. That first day of the bad news was not the time to think about it so we didn't talk at all about the next steps except in dread. But that morning I realized, my son had no choice. He had to go to battle if he wanted to get into med school.
Years ago when we were buying the farm, we were carrying two houses and the deal on the farm was closing. It was the scariest time in our life financially. A friend called me at that time and I shared with her my fears. She then shared with me about the time she and her husband also went through a scary financial time and the bank was going to take their home. They decided, and so did we, that, fine, no problem, try and take our house, but we will go down fighting. We didn't have our house or farm taken away and neither did they. My son needed that same attitude. Fine, reject me, but if I don't get into med school, I'm going to go down fighting.
That morning when he woke up, I had the pep talk of a lifetime planned. He had barely opened his eyes, and I let him have it. I told him what I had read, how Israel fought and how he now needed to fight. God had purposely chosen to not let him get in. He was giving him a 9 month gift of time to get his act together before 2nd round med school applications went in. He was going to use this time to refine him and make his application even better. His first MCAT was ok, but it needed to be STELLAR. His first application was maybe a B, but it needed to be an A+. His years of experience were great, but they needed to be even greater. He was going to have to kick it up a notch and FIGHT. He was going to have to go after research projects at school, get published, work in another hospital, make more connections with doctors, volunteer in other places to round him out.....and quit his beloved Marineland. That was the kicker. He was so upset about that, but it had to go. IF, his goal was to get in. And we had to assess that - was he still wanting to be a doctor? Yes. He really wanted that. So he sat there and then thought about it all day and into the next day and the next day and then yesterday I saw a change. He started to make calls, lists, reach out to people.....he made a plan on how to execute the MCAT again. He thought of ways to study better without getting stress and shingles again. He thought of what to do and how to to make his application better. Though it was going to be hard, he was going to make it IMPOSSIBLE for the med schools to reject him.
Numbers 21:34 says, "Do not fear, for I have given him into your hand...." My son had fear about being rejected a second time. For sure, it could happen. He will not apply a third time. If he gets rejected again then we know it was not God's will for him to be a doctor and he will pursue something else. But, he is going to go down fighting. I'm so glad that he has taken this rejection to push him instead of to deflate him which is what I'm sure the enemy would have wanted. So yes, God answered our prayers, not how we had hoped, but perhaps even in a better way.
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