September 2008 – rejection letter after rejection letter! I got second interview offers from four top firms, was in the top of my class, yet received not a single offer for a summer associate position for the following summer.
February 2009 – Patrick gets laid off, twice, and ends up without a job for FOUR months! (Side note – we got a ridiculous amount of money back from our tax return in March of 2009. We still don't really know why except that our CPA is a genius … and the fact that without that money, who knows how we would have paid our bills!!)
March 2009 – I decide to apply for an unpaid internship at the Florida Supreme Court. Considering our current position, I really needed a paying job! But it just was not happening! Soon after being chosen for the internship, the Professor in charge of the program asked if any of us would be willing to take a position in DC instead because they had chosen too many students. I seriously considered it but in the end, fought to keep my spot at the Florida Supreme Court. And I was chosen to intern for Justice Ricky Polston.
May 2009 – Company where Patrick interned while he was in school posts an open position for a 6 month contractor. Not ideal but, getting paid for 6 months and doing a long distance marriage for a while was better than the alternative – not making any money at all. He contacted his former boss who decided to turn the contractor position into a full-time, permanent position when Patrick said he was interested. He had the interviews and got the job.
June 2009 – We have a fabulous family in Tallahassee who helped in more ways than I could explain! They allowed Patrick and I to stay with them throughout the summer until we could figure out what we were going to do. (They were so amazing, they put up with us through October!!) Patrick starts his new job and I start my internship. I was fully aware that I'd have to go back down to St. Pete by myself to finish my last year and a half of law school.
Until … another intern at the Supreme Court mentioned that she would be "visiting" at UF to be with her husband after they got married. I inquired about this to find that you can obtain up to 30 credit hours from another institution in law school!! I applied to visit at FSU for the Fall of 2009, was accepted, got approval from Stetson, and began at FSU in August.
Sometime during the fall semester – I can't remember the exact date because, let's be honest, everything blurs together during the semester when you're in law school – I realize that I will only need to take 15 credit hours in the spring to GRADUATE early! Once I was able to register for spring classes, I got approval from Stetson, and changed my graduation date! However, I could only change it to July 2010 because Stetson has some weird grading policy that wouldn't allow me to graduate in May when I should. There was one other important event in the fall semester (September I think); we decided we were going to buy a house (less than 6 months ago we had been UNEMPLOYED … and now we were buying house!!) We were driving around a neighborhood we liked, found a house that was probably out of our price range, and decided to go inside. As soon as I walked in, I said "This is my house!" … and it was only FOUR months later that we closed on that very house on December 23rd, 2009.
Spring semester 2010 – I was hoping I might be able to talk Stetson into letting me graduate in May so I contacted the registrar to see if there was anything I could do about the grading issue. She informed me that, in fact, Stetson faculty had just approved a policy change that would allow me to graduate in May!!!!
February 2010 – I sent my resume through the mail to some firm I thought I would be interested in. Read my past postings if you're interested in that story. However, something important to note … when I went to my first interview (and second interview, actually), every single attorney said "Oh, you know Ricky?" … Ricky?! "OOOOOOh, you mean Justice Polston." (See March 2009) Come to find out, the Justice that I interned for (admittedly as a result of being denied everywhere else!) used to be a law clerk at the firm I where I was interviewing. This was the best internship I could have ever asked for! Not only is the Justice a great person that I learned a lot from, but having worked for him was like a BIG GOLDEN star on my resume! As you probably know … I got the job and am working there today!
Maybe no one else sees it. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that alllll of these things happened because God knows what is best for me more than I do. I also know that it wasn't until I truly started seeking him that all of these events finally aligned and brought me to me fabulous husband, in our perfect little first home, at a job that has turned out to be much better than I ever thought possible.
So, who knows what he might have planned for your life!! All you have to do is ask. And then have faith that he will make amazing things happen in your life … and he will. I can say that with 100% certainty because that is exactly what he did for me.
Isn't it great how all those times along our random walks through life end up looking pretty well-ordered by Him in retrospect?
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