To be honest, the best thing about being in academia is traveling. I absolutely love conferences. Most of the time, it doesn’t even matter where they are! As long as I need to get on a plane to get there, I’m happy. This is a bit counterintuitive considering the fact that I am an introvert through and through. How do I manage to make it through 4-5 days of nonstop socialization? I don’t know. It must be God’s strength. Surprisingly, I don’t try all that hard to meet people. I guess I seem to look lonely at conferences so people tend to come to me rather than vice versa. It’s a great networking tool if I do say so myself. All that is a wee bit of a departure from the topic for today, God’s timing. 

A while back, I wrote about being stressed mid-semester and God rearranging my attitude to bring me peace. Well, one of the key reasons for that stress was my first-year project paper. As background, in academia, there’s a lot of pressure to publish in peer-reviewed journals. Other than grant awards, it’s the leading indicator of how your career is going. As a student in two high-performance labs, I was languishing about how long it was taking to get this product out. I have been working on it since the first semester of my program and I’m now almost at the end of my second year and it’s still not done. This was giving me loads of stress.

Previously, my PI and I had discussed possible journals where the paper could find a happy home. I had one particular one as my top choice. Generally, my PI is really encouraging, but given his experience, he was tempering my expectations concerning that journal. Still, I needed to finish the paper before this would even become and issue.Little did I know that what felt like a stressful delay was actually a divine setup according to God’s timing.

Towards the end of March, I presented my first-year project as a poster at a conference. My time slot was rather early in the morning and I was a bit late since it decided to snow that day. I guess such things happen when you’re in the Rockies. Nonetheless, plenty of people came to my poster and I gave my spiel a few times. The last lady who came through turned out to be an editor from my top choice journal. What are the chances? Apparently, they’re really high when God is setting you up. She was excited about my work and impressed that I was doing it at such an early stage in my career. She though I was an assistant professor at first. Eek! That’s a dream compliment. She recommended that I suggest her as the editor when I get around to submitting the project to the journal.

As with many things in life, catching a break in academia can be about who you know. If I would have submitted the project to the journal on my timeline (i.e.m late January), there’s a good chance that it might have been rejected. Thankfully, God doesn’t work on my timeline. His timing is perfect. He knew just wanted I needed, but I was trying to rush the process. Sometimes, when things are moving slower than you’d like, ask God to give you contentment in the here and now. Keep being diligent and trust God’s timing. It’s will all work out if you do (and without all the stress!)