"Thank you for showing interest in the position, but unfortunately, we are no longer pursuing your application."
Three times I have gotten a rejection letter for a coveted campus job; over 250 females had applied. Each time I've taken it a little harder than the time before. They always said that the third time was the charm, right? Sometimes it just isn't, after all.
No matter how qualified we are, no matter how much experience, no matter how hard you work, no matter who you know, no matter how well your interview went... sometimes you just won't get a callback.
And it can be very disheartening.
The first rejection was due to my GPA not being quite where it needed to be, and I understood. That was in my control. So I brought it a whole .5 above where was required.
The second time was due to there not being very many positions available for the spring, and I understood. That wasn't necessarily in my control, but I could always apply again for the fall when there would be more positions.
So I did. I applied for a third time and felt extremely confident, I was doing everything that I thought was right... only to be sitting at 5 p.m. on the day of the deadline for callbacks with "no notifications" lighting up my phone.
No one called me. Again.
Failure is always harder to swallow when it seems like we have done everything we should be doing - then it doesn't feel like "I could have tried harder" or it was "poor timing." As someone who has a bad habit of blaming themselves, I beat myself up for days, if not an entire week.
I lamented to my mother, I don't understand what is wrong with me or what I keep doing wrong that I just wasn't getting hired for this job?
And my mother told me something that really hit me. "Maybe this job just isn't in your path. I pray for you every day for God to guide you to where you need to be, no matter what that means."
The week of spring break, I took the time to reflect on my opportunities and enjoy my time off with my friends. The week before spring break, I had had two interviews and should be hearing back about them the week after. The week after, I had another interview coming up.
Nothing seemed to be going right for me, so I was beyond nervous about these results and interviews coming up. I spent a lot of my time journaling in a book my mother had given me called "Too Blessed to be Stressed" and found myself coming to a sort of inner peace. What would happen, would happen.
This particular Bible verse always manages to make me take a step back and remember "let go and let God."
"Trust in the LORD with all of your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways, submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight."
Proverbs 3:5-6
The entire time I was asking myself why and not understanding, I wasn't taking into account that sometimes... It just is not meant for us to understand why we don't get what we ask for.
Just like the week before spring break was absolutely terrible to me, the week afterwards God blessed me in an abundance. All three positions that I applied for, I was offered. And that is why I didn't get the original job that I had my eyes set on.
The internship, peer instructor position and peer mentor position that I ended up being offered were what I needed. That was where I am meant to be. Although these three won't take off the financial burden that the Resident Assistant job would have, I know that I will be reaching more students at the University of Kentucky this way. And maybe the financial gain is what clouded my vision in the first place; I was losing sight of why I had originally applied.
And isn't that the case of a lot of things that seem to go wrong? We seem to lose sight of the original intent for some sort of warped vision of why we want it or why we need it. God will give to us the things we truly need, what is best for us. It isn't always meant for us to understand, but to trust and know that the path we are on is the one we need and the one we are needed on.
Next time one door closes, make sure you aren't pulling on the door knob so hard you miss the other numerous doors that are opening in their place. Let go and let God, always.
