About two months ago, I saw a community notice about a paid apprenticeship for teens.  It’s a new program, for teens ages 16 and up, to teach them about financial responsibility, management, investing, etc, and was limited to only 10 teens.  As soon as I finished reading the notice, I reached for the phone and called the person who was organizing it.  My son was away at camp then, but it had his name written all over it, and I wanted to get more information as well as present him as a potential applicant since he couldn’t call himself. 

I enjoyed our conversation and was impressed with how she was putting the program together, as well as her intent in creating it.  My son had said a short time before that, that he was feeling he needed more guidance in learning what he wanted to learn about finances, and wished he had someone who had done what he wanted to do to give him some guidance or support.  I told her about my son, and asked if they would consider admitting him even though he wasn’t yet 16 (actually, his 15th birthday was the next day).  She asked me about him, and told me they would consider it, but they really needed to speak to him.

Her manager called me a couple of days later, to ask me to have my son call them.  I said he was away, but could call them two weeks later, as soon as he got back.  I sent my son the flyer with the info, and told him about it on visiting day.  He was excited about the possibility of participating, but worried about his chances for being accepted, particularly since he was younger than 16, and because he was concerned that an opportunity like this would be flooded with interested teens.

When he got home, he called them right away, and was told to come in for an application. The application required writing an essay outlining his long and short term goals, as well as answering some other thought provoking questions.  After all of the applications were received, they were going to interview teens that they were interested in.

My son wrote the essay, and gave it in a couple of days later, a day before the deadline.  He was told that the program would start a couple of weeks later, and if they were interested, he would hear from them within a couple of days to come in for an interview.

Days went by, and he didn’t hear anything.  I suggested he call them and make sure his application wasn’t misplaced, but he didn’t want to – he said that if they hadn’t called, it was because he hadn’t made it into the group of people they wanted to speak with.  When a few days after that, the date the program was slated to begin passed, he knew that he wouldn’t be included.

He was disappointed, but he then told me that he had mixed feelings about it all along, because he was concerned how he was going to successfully manage his intensive school schedule with the demands of the program.  I told him that because he was ambivalent about it, he wasn’t projecting a clear positive intention about it and for that reason alone I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t been accepted.

Okay, fast forward to two days ago.  When we started discussing options to school, his mind starting opening up to possibilities, and he started thinking how much he would like to be in this program.  Guess what came in the mail today?  An acceptance letter welcoming him to the program, along with the changed start date (two weeks from now), dated two days ago – written the very day that he changed his attitude about it! 

You could say it’s a coincidence, that they just ‘happened’ to write his acceptance on the very day he released his ambivalence about the program, weeks after his application was given in and the program was set to begin.   But I don’t think so.  I think situations like these give us the opportunity to see the hand of G-d, and that every day is filled with small miracles when we take the opportunity to see them. 

However it happened, receiving that letter today, right after we made the official calls notifying everyone involved that he wouldn’t be returning to school, was even more of a validation and encouragement to my son that he made the right decision! 

Avivah