Unfreakinbelievable.

Last night I made dinner for my sister and her husband again... chilled out holding baby Joshie some more, and then headed out.

By the time I neared home, I wasn't feeling so great. Just kind of lonesome and emotional. It happens. So I went to the Catholic church to hang out with Jesus a while. I've found it's a pretty sure-fire way to get rid of the grey clouds and be ready to go home again.

When I stepped inside the church, I remembered a terrible dream I had last summer. In it I saw the four children I'd never have, and they sang to me, "I love you, I love you, I love you," as I walked away from them, like leaving a story at the end of a movie. I woke up in the morning really weeping, and at the time, I believed it was true.

The whole day following that was horrible - I was alone in the office all day, and I could still hear the children's song in my head for several hours. Finally I prayed in desperation that there would be a sign of encouragement for me when I went to the Catholic church after work.

I got there and sat in the back row while the Mass went on. And sitting in front of me was a girl I had just met a few weeks before, who used to attend my church and became a Catholic with her husband. In her arms she held a squirmy, happy, blond little baby girl, who kept smiling at me. Eventually I reached over and picked her up, to give her mom a rest, and she happily snuggled near me, playing with my necklace.

As I cuddled her, I suddenly realized that she was my sign. God sent me a baby, to reassure me that the terrible dream was nothing but a lie to scare me. Tears ran down my cheeks again as I rocked the little chubby angel - truly a "sent one" that day.

After the Mass I chatted with her mommy, who said that it had been a very spontaneous decision to go to the service. She said she was "just supposed to be there and didn't know why," and also commented that sometimes God allows these hard experiences to expose what's really in our hearts. In my case, it was admitting that I really did want to be a mom and have kids, that it mattered a lot more than I was willing to let on most of the time.

Anyway I was remembering all this last night, and feeling a lot of confusion about my efforts to move to Europe, whether I was just kidding myself about this new career direction, and wanting to have a home, a family and to make a husband happy.

I got home around 11:15, headed for the door, then remembered to get the mail. I was just going to skip it, but then thought maybe I should get it anyway. On impulse I prayed, "Lord, would You put something encouraging in there?" I saw a big white envelope and thought it might be a prospectus for a graduate school or something. Once in the house, I threw the mail on the counter, did some other stuff, and then came back to see what that envelope was.

It was from Geneva.

My grades from the summer program.

I panicked. What if my paper was lousy? I knew I'd done well on the tests, but I'd had a real scare after I'd turned the paper in, when it hit me that I hadn't used any of the reading material the course had assigned to us, and I feared that would be considered a negative. I'd forced myself not to re-read or analyze that paper and to just wait. But now it was here.

I prayed what I prayed as I'd been writing the thing: "Lord, I know You sent me to Geneva to bless me, not for shame or failure. So I believe this paper will be more blessing and success." And I opened it up.

The transcript was on top. A+

I just stared in shock. I couldn't believe it. Other than my Africa course at Stanford last March, I hadn't seen an A+ on anything in years. A's, sure. A-minus even. I'd gotten used to the annoyance. But this - was an A+.

In the modified words of a really funny mock newspaper story, when the "freaking Boston Red Sox freaking finally freaking won the freaking World Series," it was unfreakinbelievable.

I started to cry. I opened up the tests. The comments were typical Swiss understatement, where "not bad" means "great!" No real critique there, almost perfect scores. Then I opened up the paper.

A few scattered comments, and then a list of critique at the back:

"very original topic, well tackled
good definition of concepts
excellent use of literature
good structure and argumentation
very lively and polished writing style
case study appropriate
good spread of examples and illustrations"

One negative comment: docked one point for "no use of summer program content"

Score: 49/50. Graded by the professor who directed the program.

I was bawling. Just bawling. This was the best feedback I'd gotten off a paper since college. From a freaking understated Swiss, who didn't know anything about me and didn't care. I called my parents, even though it was 11:30pm. My mom answered.

"I got my paper back from Geneva," I sobbed. "I got an A+"

God bless my mom, she heard me right the first time and got so excited. She put my dad on the phone next and I kept crying and read him the comments. He told me he'd known ever since reading the draft that it would be great.

So, yes, I win the prize for being the soggiest doggy ever. Me and my tears. But this time, I earned it... and God gave me favor where it was needed.

This morning I came in to work, called Barb to follow me into Rich's office, and handed him the folder with the transcript on top. When his eyes hit the A+, he looked at me with an eye of salute. "Wow. You did it. You needed that, and you did it. That's as good as it gets."

"Now get busy on that application for Germany!!"

So once again, I have my marching orders for the time being. I can do this stuff... and God will put me where I need to be. He knows my heart. He knows I need a family. He knows when and where that will be. And until then, it's one project at a time.

As my Swiss friends all say, "bon courage!"