No such thing as a coincidence...
On the TV show NCIS, the surly lead agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, makes no attempt to hide his cynicism when confronted with seemingly coincidental circumstances in a criminal case. "I don't BELIEVE in coincidences," he growls. Well, neither do I. And the following is a a recounting of all the coincidences that I don't believe in:
After my mom died in January, I knew that it was time to move away from Tulsa - though I didn't have a clue WHERE. Still, the logical thing seemed to be to sell my house and free myself up to go whenever I figured things out. It shouldn't have been that traumatic but the idea of trying to get my house in shape to sell and then actually SHOW it with delinquent dogs driving away prospective buyers, was totally overwhelming. On the front porch of our cabin in Colorado (my go-to place when I need to sort out life's problems), I explained (whined?) to God that the whole thing was just too overwhelming for me to face. If He wanted me to sell the house, He was going to have to have someone walk up off the street and say "Excuse me, can I buy your house?". This seemed unlikely, and yet essentially, that's just what happened. On the way home from Colorado it "popped in to my mind" to call my friend Jonathan and ask if he wanted to RENT the house. He said yes, but then a few weeks later, he dropped by to say that he had reconsidered, and if I was amenable, he'd just like to go ahead and buy it. We agreed on a price with about 15 seconds of haggling, shook on it and agreed on a move out/in date. I never called a realtor. One problem solved - though, as is often the case, solutions to old problems just lead to NEW problems because with the sale of the house, I was about to be homeless and still had no idea what I was supposed to do next.
In late March, I sat in frustration in the midst of a group of praying friends who had inadvertently asked me the one question I was least able to answer. "What are you going to do now?" I really, REALLY hate that question. I had been asking God that same thing for nearly two years, and as far as I could tell, no answer was forthcoming. I still thought I was supposed to go overseas, but I didn't know where, or how, or what I was supposed to do whenever I got wherever it was that I was supposed to be going. So when the question came, the look on my face and a healthy sense of self-preservation on the part of my long-suffering friends led to earnest prayer that God would reveal the "next step". And I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was stunned when - He did! The very next morning I woke up early and the first thought that registered in my brain was "You need to get your ESL certificate!". It was so clear that I didn't even think to question it. Within a matter of weeks, I was on my way to Denver for a month long CELTA course (Cambridge English Language Teaching to Adults).
But I STILL didn't know what I was going to DO with the certificate, or where I was going to go and the bigger problem looming was that even if God answered my "destination" prayer, I couldn't simply abandon my much loved, but seriously not-perfectly-trained dogs. I couldn't ASK someone to take responsibility for them and I was pretty sure that there was no one on the planet who would care for them as much as I did. With little faith that the Lord of the sparrow was also the Lord of yellow labs, I headed out one evening in Denver for a tearful walk around Washington Park, where I poured out my heart to heaven concerning the impossibility of my circumstances. While I was praying, and crying and being generally pathetic, my cell phone rang. Since I was enjoying a healthy dose of self-pity, I chose to ignore it until I got back to my car. The call as it turned out, was from my niece, newly married and 1600 miles away. She and her new husband had just, by "happenstance" been talking about my dogs - the dogs they had met for all of 45 minutes on a short pre-wedding trip through Oklahoma. Aware that I was entertaining the notion of leaving the U.S., Erin and Michael just wanted me to know that they would be happy to take care of both Moshe and Scout and that they would" love them and care for them and give them a happy home for as long as I was gone". SERIOUSLY - WHO CALLS UP AND OFFERS THAT? JUST AS I HAPPENED TO BE CRYING BECAUSE THERE WAS NO WAY I WOULD EVER FIND A GOOD HOME FOR MY DOGS? That's a stretch even if you DO believe in coincidences.
You'd think that at this point, the giants in the land wouldn't have looked so intimidating, and I really WAS grateful to have an answer for my four legged companions, but within a few weeks of getting back to Tulsa I was convinced that it was a moot point. The dogs might have a home, but I had SOLD mine in the conviction that I was bound away for adventures in foreign lands - and yet here it was June - and I was still in Oklahoma -homeless - with no prospect of going anywhere else.
For some months, I had been going to the airport at least once a week to pray that God would put me on a plane. I have no explanation for this other than that: a. I was desperate. and b. I am a very strange person. I just figured that if I was supposed to be leaving the country, I should be ready to get on the plane and so it made sense to pray at the airport. I mean, it made sense to me - not to anybody else. Anyway, the problem with praying at the airport was that I was afraid I would be mistaken for a terrorist - especially since I am totally unable to pray without moving my lips, and I thought it looked suspicious to hang out near the departure gate with a Bible, muttering to myself. The obvious solution was to pull out my cell phone and act like I was talking on it. No one needed to know that I was talking to God. (I have His number). So there I was, early summer, griping to God on the phone at the airport - saying for the thousandth time, "LORD - you have GOT to tell me where I'm supposed to go!" The phone rang. In my hand - as I was talking to God. It seemed like a good idea to answer it. Turned out that it was NOT a direct line from heaven, but it was pretty close. My friend Kalyn, who is a missionary in Cape Town, was calling from South Africa. This is hardly an every day occurrence. I actually think she's called me 3 times in as many years. "Jan", she says. "I've been thinking about you all week, and I think you should come to South Africa". She totally had my attention now, but still - despite the fact that the phone had just rung in the airport WHILE I WAS CALLING GOD, I still had doubts - and a host of "demands" regarding what i WOULD do and what I would NOT do etc. It would take an entry way longer than I am willing to write at the moment. Suffice to say, everything I "required" came to pass. My Father was amazingly patient and apparently not at all put off by my pain-in -the -keesterness. That's why I don't believe in coincidences. Oh, but I DO believe in Him!
After my mom died in January, I knew that it was time to move away from Tulsa - though I didn't have a clue WHERE. Still, the logical thing seemed to be to sell my house and free myself up to go whenever I figured things out. It shouldn't have been that traumatic but the idea of trying to get my house in shape to sell and then actually SHOW it with delinquent dogs driving away prospective buyers, was totally overwhelming. On the front porch of our cabin in Colorado (my go-to place when I need to sort out life's problems), I explained (whined?) to God that the whole thing was just too overwhelming for me to face. If He wanted me to sell the house, He was going to have to have someone walk up off the street and say "Excuse me, can I buy your house?". This seemed unlikely, and yet essentially, that's just what happened. On the way home from Colorado it "popped in to my mind" to call my friend Jonathan and ask if he wanted to RENT the house. He said yes, but then a few weeks later, he dropped by to say that he had reconsidered, and if I was amenable, he'd just like to go ahead and buy it. We agreed on a price with about 15 seconds of haggling, shook on it and agreed on a move out/in date. I never called a realtor. One problem solved - though, as is often the case, solutions to old problems just lead to NEW problems because with the sale of the house, I was about to be homeless and still had no idea what I was supposed to do next.
In late March, I sat in frustration in the midst of a group of praying friends who had inadvertently asked me the one question I was least able to answer. "What are you going to do now?" I really, REALLY hate that question. I had been asking God that same thing for nearly two years, and as far as I could tell, no answer was forthcoming. I still thought I was supposed to go overseas, but I didn't know where, or how, or what I was supposed to do whenever I got wherever it was that I was supposed to be going. So when the question came, the look on my face and a healthy sense of self-preservation on the part of my long-suffering friends led to earnest prayer that God would reveal the "next step". And I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I was stunned when - He did! The very next morning I woke up early and the first thought that registered in my brain was "You need to get your ESL certificate!". It was so clear that I didn't even think to question it. Within a matter of weeks, I was on my way to Denver for a month long CELTA course (Cambridge English Language Teaching to Adults).
But I STILL didn't know what I was going to DO with the certificate, or where I was going to go and the bigger problem looming was that even if God answered my "destination" prayer, I couldn't simply abandon my much loved, but seriously not-perfectly-trained dogs. I couldn't ASK someone to take responsibility for them and I was pretty sure that there was no one on the planet who would care for them as much as I did. With little faith that the Lord of the sparrow was also the Lord of yellow labs, I headed out one evening in Denver for a tearful walk around Washington Park, where I poured out my heart to heaven concerning the impossibility of my circumstances. While I was praying, and crying and being generally pathetic, my cell phone rang. Since I was enjoying a healthy dose of self-pity, I chose to ignore it until I got back to my car. The call as it turned out, was from my niece, newly married and 1600 miles away. She and her new husband had just, by "happenstance" been talking about my dogs - the dogs they had met for all of 45 minutes on a short pre-wedding trip through Oklahoma. Aware that I was entertaining the notion of leaving the U.S., Erin and Michael just wanted me to know that they would be happy to take care of both Moshe and Scout and that they would" love them and care for them and give them a happy home for as long as I was gone". SERIOUSLY - WHO CALLS UP AND OFFERS THAT? JUST AS I HAPPENED TO BE CRYING BECAUSE THERE WAS NO WAY I WOULD EVER FIND A GOOD HOME FOR MY DOGS? That's a stretch even if you DO believe in coincidences.
You'd think that at this point, the giants in the land wouldn't have looked so intimidating, and I really WAS grateful to have an answer for my four legged companions, but within a few weeks of getting back to Tulsa I was convinced that it was a moot point. The dogs might have a home, but I had SOLD mine in the conviction that I was bound away for adventures in foreign lands - and yet here it was June - and I was still in Oklahoma -homeless - with no prospect of going anywhere else.
For some months, I had been going to the airport at least once a week to pray that God would put me on a plane. I have no explanation for this other than that: a. I was desperate. and b. I am a very strange person. I just figured that if I was supposed to be leaving the country, I should be ready to get on the plane and so it made sense to pray at the airport. I mean, it made sense to me - not to anybody else. Anyway, the problem with praying at the airport was that I was afraid I would be mistaken for a terrorist - especially since I am totally unable to pray without moving my lips, and I thought it looked suspicious to hang out near the departure gate with a Bible, muttering to myself. The obvious solution was to pull out my cell phone and act like I was talking on it. No one needed to know that I was talking to God. (I have His number). So there I was, early summer, griping to God on the phone at the airport - saying for the thousandth time, "LORD - you have GOT to tell me where I'm supposed to go!" The phone rang. In my hand - as I was talking to God. It seemed like a good idea to answer it. Turned out that it was NOT a direct line from heaven, but it was pretty close. My friend Kalyn, who is a missionary in Cape Town, was calling from South Africa. This is hardly an every day occurrence. I actually think she's called me 3 times in as many years. "Jan", she says. "I've been thinking about you all week, and I think you should come to South Africa". She totally had my attention now, but still - despite the fact that the phone had just rung in the airport WHILE I WAS CALLING GOD, I still had doubts - and a host of "demands" regarding what i WOULD do and what I would NOT do etc. It would take an entry way longer than I am willing to write at the moment. Suffice to say, everything I "required" came to pass. My Father was amazingly patient and apparently not at all put off by my pain-in -the -keesterness. That's why I don't believe in coincidences. Oh, but I DO believe in Him!