The Letter That Arrived Before She Applied

In 2019, a high school senior named Destiny Williams in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, opened her mailbox to find a handwritten note from a college admissions counselor named Dr. Faye Henderson. The letter said she had read Destiny's essay in a regional writing competition and believed she belonged at their university. Destiny had never contacted the school. She hadn't even started her college applications yet.

Destiny's mother was skeptical. "Some school nobody's heard of, sending letters out of nowhere?" But Destiny visited the campus anyway. When she sat down across from Dr. Henderson, the counselor pulled out a folder — inside were three of Destiny's published poems from her school literary magazine, a newspaper clipping about her community garden project, and notes from a teacher who had quietly recommended her. Dr. Henderson had been watching Destiny's story unfold for over a year.

"You knew all that about me?" Destiny whispered.

When Nathanael asked Jesus, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered simply, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." Nathanael's skepticism — "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" — dissolved in an instant. Not because Jesus gave a convincing argument, but because Nathanael realized he had already been seen, already been known, already been chosen before he ever took a single step toward the One calling his name.

The Almighty does not wait for our applications. He has already been reading our story.