Serendipity

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. I have seen something else under the sun:

The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.

Ecclesiastes 9:10-11

Does something ever happen in your day, so unexpected and interesting, that it makes you wonder what circumstances must have led up to that chance occurrence? I had this happen in a laundromat in Beaver Bay, Minnesota, on Monday. We spent a long weekend with Grandma and Grandpa, soaking up the cool air and crisp sunshine of the North Shore. On Monday, I took the laundry to the laundromat so the many towels and sheets we used wouldn't be a burden to my sweet grandmother, who still looks after us like she did when I was a child. At the laundromat, I had to nurse Caleb - the dear boy is very ready for solids, as evidenced by his sudden increase in nursing frequency to every hour or so! One cannot sustain his mass on milk alone for long! I sat down on a very small bench with a small woman, feeling like I was a little in her space and might be even more so once I started breastfeeding! Besides, if you've ever been to Beaver Bay, you know there are a few questionable characters in town, and you just never know who you might sit down next to at the laundromat...

We started chatting as she admired the baby. She was about my mother's age and had four children herself - three girls and then a little boy, just like me. She shared many things about parenting that particular gender group that I stored in my brain for future reference. Then my grandparents came in to help pick up the laundry, and I said goodbye. I went back to ask her name later, as my grandparents thought they knew her. She told me, and then said she was from Canada, and here on vacation, so it was quite unlikely that they knew her. We both remarked on the obviously fortuitous and unlikely nature of our meeting, and one of her comments was a little "nudge" that I should share more of my story and my faith with her. I did, and found that she was a fellow believer.

I don't know if God had us meet for her to encourage and teach me, for me to encourage her, or for some other purpose. It was one of those events that was a "God wink", as my mother says - a moment when you know He had something bigger planned and put that plan in motion long ago. To think of the many choices that could have affected the Plan for that meeting - from my end, not doing Grandma's laundry, leaving a day earlier, or choosing not to sit down next to a perfect stranger to nurse my baby. In the end, the Plan did happen, leaving both her and I wondering, I think, what it's purpose might be?

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny …’
~ Isaac Asimov