Tuesday 10 July 2018

Promises

Last week, my university sponsor called me up and she sounded like she had bad news. "Lisa, we can only pay for your books and tuition. (We cannot give you a living allowance.)" Uh... Thank you very much! I was happy and grateful for it.

I had been thinking about university for a while and when I finally called them to ask about sponsorship on June 22, I found out their cutoff for funding applications was June 30. I had one week to pay my registration and get all the information together to meet the funding deadline, with no guarantees.

I ran into a snag when I found out that it would be several weeks before I would receive the transcripts from my G.E.D. needed to submit the funding application. I am in Alberta, Canada. To help me meet the deadline, a woman who works at the place where the transcripts were said she would send and informal email to my potential sponsor BUT, and this was a big but, I needed to go in person to pay the fee and hand in the request form. The transcripts were in Regina, Saskatchewan.

There were three prospective people that might be able to help, an aunt, a cousin, and a friend. The aunt never returned my text and the cousin didn't respond until it was too late. I downloaded the form. This was on the Saturday. It turned out that my friend worked close to the address I needed to hand in the form and fee. She was leaving to vacation on the Tuesday. She said she could do this transaction for me before 4PM on the Monday.

Now it was back in the hands of the would-be sponsor. She called me up to ask for a program list and description. I was able to provide everything required. Then I never heard anything from her. I tried calling her and could not reach her until the day she called to tell me there would be no living allowance.

That day, she said the decision would be made on Thursday the 5th of July as to who would be receiving school funding. Throughout this whole process, she has been really great.

Now, the university had a cutoff date of July 10 to be registered to begin courses on August 1st. I was already fingers crossed to be selected for funding. Things were looking good for me and my anticipation was high as I had been helped toward my goal already with the friend in Regina and the woman at the transcripts place.

I called on the 6th, which was a Friday, to find out if there was any word on the funding decision. I could not get in contact with anyone. I called on the Monday, with course registration due on the 10th, Tuesday. Yes! I found I was accepted and approved for books and tuition. Still, I needed to be registered for my courses on another tight deadline.

With assistance from my sponsor and the university, we three were able to get me into every course I selected with almost 24hs to spare. All of this happened in little over two weeks.

In The Program, one of The Promises is,

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Surely this is one of those times.




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While you are here,

Lisa L'Heureux is the author of 7 books. Her work includes the Lisa's Sober Blog SeriesThis and the Man in the Moon and This One is About Domestic Violence. She lives with her family in Alberta, Canada.

More than six years ago, Lisa retired from practicing alcoholism.

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**Buy the Lisa's Sober Blog Books Gift Pack
        
        

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