God is blocking all my shots

He really is, reader. I don't know if he's trying to tell me I'm not cut out for basketball or setting me up for one of those amazing instant viral video impossible shots to win it all. But I'm getting shut out in every direction. I'm getting shut out with a ladder under the net and time to climb it. He's blocking my sure things. The things I should be a shoo-in for, I'm getting shut out of without any plausible explanation. I don't know what's going on.

When I was in college, we had a dream sheet that was turned in before graduation to let the military know what job you would like, what place you would like to go, and when you would like to start. It was called a dream sheet for a reason. Some people even joked the only way to have a chance at what you wanted was to ask for the opposite. Want to be a maintenance officer? Ask to be a pilot. Certain jobs were favorites among cadets cross country but the odds of anyone getting them were really slim. Really slim. And there were certain things everyone thought you needed to have on your resume to even be competitive for consideration and I didn't have them. I hadn't held the "right" positions within the cadet corps and most importantly didn't have the elusive endorsement of our Commandant for the job. So the dream sheets were handed in, I challenged the Commandant for insight into how he made his decision on who should get his recommendation, cried a little, and then made my peace with having some other random job. My hope was to at least get a job that wouldn't interfere with my plans to go back to school and plot my post-military career. I was disappointed and disillusioned. I actually asked the Commandant if he based his decision on who went jogging with him. I swear I don't know where I get the gumption sometimes.

Then I got a call. Before my detachment had a chance to notify anyone of their assignments, the folks from the job I thought I never had a shot called to start up my pre-employment investigation. I was selected. One of 14 cadets from the thousands. Me. I couldn't believe it. One of the guys in my detachment asked if I was picked because I was a black female. I heard rumors the Commandant I had confronted earlier had been upset when he found out I got the job and tried to do something to intervene or block my assignment. For a time my best friend was kind of upset with me, I think because she was annoyed that I had not even heard of the job before I heard about it through her. Between the two of us at least from where I stood, she had more going for her than I did. It was hard to have her mad at me for something like that and to know at least one person questioned whether I 'deserved' the appointment or was I simply filling a quota. Only a minority can understand how hurtful something like that is. But my mom, she said something that I come back to often; "God wanted you to know this had nothing to do with man's favor. This is where he wants you to be." How else could the darkest horse in the cadet corps attain this elusive job?

So it turned out I had written my future on my dream sheet. I had asked for an impossible job, and to begin active duty on July 1st in Arizona. That is exactly what I got. Exactly. It was a divine appointment. In coming to this fair urine stained city, I had applied for an immediate opening in February that they waited until September for me to actually fill. Unheard of. This spring I applied for two things that I'm actually qualified for and had an inside track with and I was totally shot down. Completely. Shot blocked and groin kicked for good measure. I'm not sure if I'm detecting a pattern that's not there but it does appear that I only fit through narrow sets of extraordinary circumstances. One's that seem to require engineering beyond man's assistance or favor and often in spite of it.

Guess I need to start trying to figure out what impossible thing to shoot for next.