One of the gems on a Tim McGraw album I bought years ago is a song called “Somebody Must be Praying for Me.” I heard it just the other day and it was as though my emotions had been given voice. Every time I hear it, I get this sense of “Yeah, that’s about me.”

But here lately, that song really IS about me.

My aunt has a phrase that sums up what I’ve been feeling in the last year…the universe aligning. You see a signpost; you come across an open window; there’s a door left cracked in your path – I think most people have experienced this alignment phenomenon.

What my aunt calls Universe, I call God.

God’s been pretty busy in my life, in a way that I can’t help but notice. He’s always busy in my life, I know, but sometimes he’s busy fixing the caulking or putting in new plumbing – things that don’t necessarily get immediate notice (until you take a shower or flush the toilet, that is). Just this week, though, God has decided to do some interior design in my life, and I’m liking it. I tend to be one to be polar – I agree too readily or I’m too doubtful – so you can take my initial approval with a grain of salt. I won’t be offended.

One of the paths that’s been calling us in the last year has been that of my husband’s school. Bob sacrificed his college education in his younger days, and before I met him, he had pretty much given it up for a lost idea. But in the last eight years, there has been a spark of hope. He took a couple of classes, and the fire of learning was lit. He LOVED college classes. He was the star student and he glowed and studied and made me proud. If I had been a student like him, I could have had a scholarship to Harvard.

We just had one problem: how to fund it. There was no way he could quit his job, he was ambivalent about getting a new one, and scholarships don’t exist for non-full-time students. Then there’s the hurdle of being a non-traditional student (which I think is to his benefit, actually – hey, you have a brilliant wife and an aspiring daughter, along with life experience; what more could a co-ed want?), of juggling responsibilities and professors’ demands.

I wasn’t worried as much as I was disappointed. I kept feeling like I should be DOING something. So I started really praying. Hours of Adoration devoted to this cause, novenas, rosaries, Masses, petitions to friends. My request? “Thy will, Lord, not my will.” (It’s an ongoing prayer!) “Help us know what to do.”

There would be a hint here, a trace there. It seemed to me that college was the place for Bob. Ever the practical husband, he agreed that he would love to be in classes. But he didn’t seem to be doing much about it. I prayed harder.

And then, out of nowhere, he opens his mind to me. “I’ve been thinking,” he starts, and he finishes by sharing a plan of having his employer pay for the entire thing. I couldn’t move. My jaw was lying abandoned on the floor. Where did this come from?

(I shouldn’t have been surprised. This is how things work with my husband. It seems that nothing is happening, but what is happening is that he is thinking, planning, figuring. He will share it all, when the Master Plan is ready. And it will be far better than anything She-Who-Rushes-Into-Things could have put together.)

We sat down two weeks ago and put together a proposal. Well, after hearing his plan, I put the proposal together for him. He tweaked it, and late last week, he went in to the general manager of his company. The general manager was very supportive, but we’ve seen smoke rings before. I followed Bob’s lead and stayed cynical. And I prayed, prayed, prayed.

On Monday, as I was laying on the couch feeling the beginnings of what would become the Tuesday Flu Adventure, Bob mentioned ever-so-casually that he would need to be better about getting to work on-time, especially since they would be paying for his schooling.

*pause for much rejoicing*

Now, in his never-failing practical way, Bob keeps reminding me that he hasn’t seen that first check. But, in my never-failing enthusiastic way, I have been offering everything I can to God in thanksgiving, and jumping up and down. I haven’t been telling everyone I know, because I’ve been too busy…puking and cleaning and putting through my daily life. You are among the first to know.

So, to whoever out there has been praying for me – because there has to be more than just me for this doozy to come through – thanks. (And there’s a whole slew of other things that support the title of this post, but…well, look how long it is already!)