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It is so easy to arrogate to ourself what we think we deserved, forgetting our reality at the time.

I should have pursued a proper graduate job upon completing a higher degree, I might tell myself. But the reality?

I attended numerous interviews all across the country in pursuit of my intended career at the time. Not a single one proved fruitful.

I had to take a temp agency role instead, only very vaguely related to the field I intended to enter, and I didn’t need a degree for that.

But that was my reality: I couldn’t get anything else. Indeed, it would take another eight years to get a job I felt actually suited me, and that was only because a manager wanted rid of me.

So who am I to now say I deserve something better? What makes me deserving? Because my parents were successful, or my siblings, or friends?

My reality: I was weighed down by conditions of body and soul, in no state to sell myself or prove my worth, lacking both ambition and direction.

The same might be said of relationships, forgetting how I was back then: my face and form. The reality: I was a laughing stock, with that skeletal frame of mine, gaunt face and those overwhelming blues.

Whatever I once imagined was pure fantasy: an impossible feat, never destined for me. Instead, I had to await my turn, when the time was right, for what was destined to miraculously slot into place.

From one vantage point, we may look back on the past as a series of missed opportunities. But, in truth, it was a test of patience, trial after trial. And where I find myself now is still a test, for better or worse.

Is it not worth recalling that I did nothing to obtain the blessings bestowed on us? This was simply our provision. So why arrogate wondrous claims to myself? If the past couple of years have taught me anything at all, it’s that God is in control absolutely.