It was exactly one week ago that I arrived in from of the reference desk in the library.
"Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find a study?"
"A study?"
"Yes, I need a thesis study. I am desperate and I need help badly. Any study that I can pull off before May." Not to mention I really want a study on how the seed Moringa olifera purifies water and can be used as a water treatment in developing countries to prevent malnutrition. Up to the challenge, the nice ladies were on it, typing away to help find any papers that had to do with Moringa and water purification. They found a few, although nothing really matched with what I had in mind. I thanked them and went to class, feeling more hopeless by the minute.
What a mess. I had started this thesis on child malnutrition because what I really care about concerning my dietetics degree is feeding kids who are so hungry and malnourished you can see their ribs through their skin. Prescribing hospital diets just isn't where my heart is at. I had just hoped that the study for this thesis would work its way out, but I had hit dead end after dead end, from unreliable collection of data to realizing the data needed to do certain studies would require me to also have my Maters in statistics. Back at the library an hour later, I made a half-hearted attempt for the 100th time to google a simple study to use that related to the 40 pages I already had written on water and its effect on malnutrition. Using Moringa, the amazing seed with water-purifying properties that I had heard of only a week earlier. I clicked on the first page and waited for it to load. And waited. I was losing patience. My phone vibrated and it was my sister calling. To spite the computer and my whole thesis in general, I answered and left that page loading away while I went out in the hall to talk. After talking with her and then unloading my frustrations on her, I asked if she could pray for God to just give me a study.
I arrived back at the screen with a fully loaded page on testing water turbidity, or the the cloudiness of water, using Moringa to test how effective it is as a water purifier. I printed it and left. Would this really work? I emailed a chemistry teacher to ask if the college had a turbidity meter. The study called for one. "No, but I was actually just thinking of buying one this week" he said, after also volunteering to help with the experiment. Really. Well thank You Jesus.
The only thing left was to get it approved by my advisor. "Christine, I am very worried for you" was the last thing I had heard from him when I set up a meeting because I had yet another study idea in mind. I don't blame him, I was probably driving him nuts with all of my crazy ideas every other week that kept failing. So when he looked at my new statement of purpose and study design today and said that he was very happy and that this was a very do-able study and he is excited for this topic, relief washed over me. Progress! Finally! Hallelujah!
I've got a while to go still, but I know my God is with me. My God will come through everytime. He was and is and will always be faithful, even when I have my doubts. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" Sometimes I just need to be reminded of this truth, waking me up to realize that nothing is too far past God's perfect and loving help.
