God is still good! Prayer still works!
My journey hasn’t been perfectly linear, but it has been my own. Those who know me best know that two years ago, I applied to 9 marketing Ph.D. programs, interviewed with 2, and didn’t earn acceptance into any of them.
Let me plant a kickstand here. The Lord had other plans for my life. I moved to New York. I created a job in a company that I am just as fond of as the day I first reached out to them. I proposed to the love of my life. I started a business. I studied alongside exemplary academicians at New York University.
All of these life events and countless other experiences have helped continually shape me into the man I am destined to be. This past Friday, the Lord showed me that I am still acting within His will and have not left from His grace.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) offered me admission into their College of Business Business Administration doctoral program for Fall 2014.
It was shouting time paragraphs ago, but again, those who know me best know that I have been working toward this moment ever since the original nine schools I applied to me reintroduced me to rejection…to humility.
I am proud to say that this letter of admission to UIUC is the first contact from the six schools I applied to this round. That means that I may be blessed with the burden of choosing which business Ph.D. program I’ll attend in August.
Let my blessing speak to the dreamer deep in your spirit driving you to achieve goals yet unseen. Continue praying. Continue preparing. Continue sacrificing. Your time is near.
Finally, I leave you with a Bible verse that has rung true ever since I first heard it years ago at Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church.
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, “I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in! Try it! Put me to the test!
Malachi 3:10