Sandy,
You missed my story last night, but remember I promised to blog about it just for you.
This isn’t the whole story. It’s only part of the story. I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks.
Here’s the gist.
What if there was no such thing as a coincidence?
What if everything that happened to you in your life, great or small, joyous or sad had a purpose … was God’s way of steering you to just the right place at just the right time so that when He was ready, you were ready to listen and act on whatever it is He asks you to do?
How would you view the events of your life?
What new meaning would they take on?
For example, I’ve lived twelve years now in Florida and every year it seems I meet someone new and somehow it comes up that I’m from Ohio, that I attended the other Miami University. And almost always, whoever it is I am talking to asks, “How did you wind up in Florida?”
Up until a few months ago, I had a very simple explanation. When I graduated from college, I had no plans and my grandparents (who lived in Florida) said, “Come stay with us.” And so I did.
It’s as simple as that, right?
Except that it’s not.
I know that now.
Life is not random.
I move to Florida, but after a month or so, I can’t find a job, not a summer job, not a teaching job, not any job. I’m ready to move back home to Ohio. I call my dad and tell him so and he asks me what it would take for me to stay in Florida. And I say, I need a job, a summer job, like at a bookstore and I need a teaching job for the fall.
Within a week, both things happen.
Years pass and other things come up and I think about moving out of Florida, about changing careers, but in the end there is always something that keeps me here.
Why?
For several years I live beachside, but then decide I want to buy a home of my own. I look in Viera and find a short-sale. I put in an offer and 30 days later close on my first home.
Where is that home?
Just a five minute drive from an Episcopal Church that sits hidden off the road behind a forest of pines and oaks.
One Easter day two years later, I sit at the stoplight at Murrell and Wickham. I’m a bundle of nerves. And I have choice to make. Turn left and head home or stay straight and try out this new church.
Turn left or go straight ahead.
God shapes us in ways great and small. He can change our lives at stoplight. He directs our every step.
So that when the time comes, we are ready … to trust, to follow, to surrender.
And there can be no turning back.
