It's been such a long while since I last blogged. Yep, been busy. Too busy lazying around and watching shows online and on TV. Anyway, I've decided to blog because something happened to me yesterday that necessitates some kind of cathartic release I guess. 

Just a quick update, I submitted 2 applications to 2 separate PhD programs at the end of last year. One was to a PhD program in the Social Psych department of Columbia uni, and the other was to the B-School at Columbia, the marketing division. Yesterday, I felt my flicker of hope just diminish and disappear. 

The PhD application results will be out soon, but I sense my hope dissipating by the day. These are two very difficult programs to get in and I've chosen (and I'm not too sure whether is by pure faith or sheer laziness) to place all my eggs in once basket by limiting my options to these two places. Yesterday, I learnt of news that my application is being pitted against very strong competition and realistically I know my chances are close to a mere zero.

The Lord was gracious. Just before I left the apartment yesterday, I did a quick read of the daily bread my mum gave me when she dropped by New York. It was regarding the loss of Manchester United, the football club, when a plane carrying the team crashed leaving only one surviving member who rebuilt the team and restored its former glory to what we knew Man-U to be in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the same way, when Jesus died and all hope seemed to be lost, He resurrected from the dead, sat at the right hand of God in Heaven, and became our bridge to God and eternity. Although the mesage didn't impact me much as I left the apartment, but somehow the message was instructing readers to know that in all tragedy and loss, the Lord has the capability to restore and bestow greatness in all situations. I knew no matter what I had nothing to fear.

I shan't deny that I was extremely devastated. This is no life and death matter; it's merely something that I really want. But still I've been trying to apply since 2007 and I am pretty much tired now. Although I know this round I might not get in because all odds are stacked against me, I'm going to hang on and persist because God appreciates persistence in prayer and in effort. And hopefully my faith (and my applications next year) will take me there someday. As I reflect on my life, I realize how the Lord works with me. He usually opens one door and inspires hope, then closes that door but opens another that brings another spark of hope. As this door closes, I don't know what is behind the next that opens. But it usually is something better and beyond what I can imagine. Now I just need to prod on...