Providence

Providence. I have heard this word used over and over again since my early childhood. I have never bothered to look up what it means. I have inferred it of course from the context in which it is often used, phrases like 'divine providence' or 'Gods providence'. It also helps that it kind of sounds like the word provide so I guess it easy to make the connection and assume that if means something along the lines of being given/provided something by someone.

Well I looked it up today and it turns out that the words 'divine' and 'God's' are kind of redundant in those phrases I mentioned earlier. According to google's new dictionary (which will inevitable become the standard for all word definitions), providence is defined thus:

Synonyms:
noun: foresight, forethought, prudence
Providence is God, or a force which is believed by some people to arrange the things that happen to us

Correct me if I'm wrong, but according to this, providence IS God (or a force), and He is not giving/providing you with anything, he is 'arranging the things that happen to us'. Well I'm sad that I have, for most of my life, had the wrong understanding of a word that has been such a staple in the conversations around me. I'm glad however to see that it represents exactly what I am excited about right now: Gods ability to plan out our live so perfectly that we marvel at the outcomes even with the benefit of hindsight.

I have been through a roller-coaster ride of a recruiting process to say the least. Up until march of 2009 I was comfortable in the knowledge that I had a full time job offer from a major Wall street firm. I could see the plan coming together, go to New York, earn your strips in a hellish environment for two years, pay your student loans and parley the name of the company and the experience into a great career in Africa focused private equity. Then the sky came crashing down with one phone call. Suddenly I had no Job, no way to pay my student loans, no way to guarantee my stay in the US, and an impending graduation that would surely user in a period of doom and distraction. My grand scheme was in a tailspin and it took everything calm down and not throw in towel.

Almost a year later, I can confidently say that that call was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It enabled me to free myself from a job that I would be miserable doing for 2 years while keeping my large signing bonus and corporate scholarship which were integral to my being able to finish school and contingent on my accepting a full time offer with the company. It gave me the chance to spend an extra semester in the university I love the most (UT Austin), it gave me a chance to keep working with the RSC foundation and help another African student attend my Alma mater and it gave me the opportunity in the American city I love the most (Austin, TX!). I couldn't see it then but God was arranging things in a way that I could never have understood at the time. Thank God for Providence. Thank God for God ;)