what do you make of this
With a move now imminent I posted a few items online for sale that I don't want to drag with me to the next house. This morning I got a call about Rob's old bike - the man came down and got it. We talked for awhile and he shared that he and his family were in Winnipeg for a year from Quebec to enable his son to take advantage of a great training opportunity.
Later that afternoon I was at Kildonan Park with my younger 2 kids. A woman sitting nearby mentions that she is new to the area and asks if there is someplace around to buy slushies or the like. I let her know where the restaurant was in the park and asked where she was coming from.
"Quebec."
"You're the second person I've met today that moved here from Quebec. I just talked to a man this morning who said he moved here Sep. 10"
"That's when we moved here. Maybe you met my husband."
"Did your husband buy a bike today?"
"Yes!"
She pointed out that out of a city of 750,000 people, what are the chances of her happening to meet the same person her husband met that morning. We both had a kind of "Is this more than coincidence?" feeling, and talked about getting together sometime.
Any opinions? How do you tell what is chance, and what is divine?
Later that afternoon I was at Kildonan Park with my younger 2 kids. A woman sitting nearby mentions that she is new to the area and asks if there is someplace around to buy slushies or the like. I let her know where the restaurant was in the park and asked where she was coming from.
"Quebec."
"You're the second person I've met today that moved here from Quebec. I just talked to a man this morning who said he moved here Sep. 10"
"That's when we moved here. Maybe you met my husband."
"Did your husband buy a bike today?"
"Yes!"
She pointed out that out of a city of 750,000 people, what are the chances of her happening to meet the same person her husband met that morning. We both had a kind of "Is this more than coincidence?" feeling, and talked about getting together sometime.
Any opinions? How do you tell what is chance, and what is divine?
posted by Jude | 10:52 PM
11 Comments:
Want some more chills? Here's what happened to us yesterday.
We took Brenda and her boys with us to the snake dens (all in our van). On the way there we suddenly blew a tire. Doug put on the spare and we turned around to head back to the city. Then the spare blew out.
We called CAA (Brenda has a cell phone - we don't) and they said they couldn't send anyone out to tow us unless we made arrangements to get ourselves home (the driver can only take two people with him). So, while we're trying to figure out who to call a man in a Montana pulls up behind us. He offers us his spare tire, helps Doug put it on, and arranges to pick it up from us AT the snake dens in a couple of hours.
We drove back to the city, changed the tire again and loaded into Brenda's van to drive out to the dens. Sure enough, we were able to connect with this guy and return the tire. When I called the CAA guy back to say we didn't need the tow after all he said he's never heard of anyone doing that before.
Bizarre. If he hadn't stopped we would have been stuck out there on the highway. We've been wondering what God is trying to tell us, too...
is there such thing as chance?
We know who the Calvinist in our midst is.
Jude: That you are a regular visitor to KP and happen to meet somone who is there for an event isn't all that noteworthy;to have sold her husband a bike that day puts you in Rod Serling country to be sure. Mathematically improbable that it's coincidence.
Yvonne: a bunch of folks in a flashy little town in Nevada seem to think so.
Cindy: In all honesty, if I saw a family sized group of people standing on the side of the road next to their van I would have stopped too. As to the probability of two flats, well, who's to say. Typically the most common cause of a blowout is improper inflation (if you ask an RVer), and I would think that most folks tend not to check to see that their "doughnut" is correctly inflated..I don't anyway...not the kind of thing that happens everyday though is it? Weird.
what's a calvinist?
Follower of John Calvin,a theologian and a huge proponent of predestination, or lack of chance (and choice), but advocated that everything that happened was predestined to happen by God.
On the other side are the arminians, who emphasized free will.
Rob, it's not that he stopped (and we were all still inside) that was strange, or the two flats, but that he GAVE his spare tire to strangers without any hesitation or real guarantee of ever seeing it again.
An uncommonly nice guy, good thing he stopped.
What do you guys think God's point was, assuming you think He's being pointy? (If that's not being too private for a public forum...no pressure)
Hmmm... must have lost my last comment... let's see, I said something to the effect of:
Have no idea. But not ruling out the idea that there may have been one. Since such occurrences of charity are so rare and all. But we do feel more cared for than we have in awhile. T'was a gift - regardless of whether or not it was foreordained and deliberately enacted.
I've enjoyed reading these comments and the post... I don't believe in chances, coincidence or luck... everything happens for a reason I think.
Was it luck (albeit bad luck) that sent Joseph on a mule train to Egypt? I wrestle with understanding sovreignty/free will. Have for a long time. While I do believe that God gives us choices, at this point I can't help but believe that He accomplishes His purposes *despite* our choices. In other words, He'll accomplish His purpose no matter *what* we choose.
So, somehow, I would exercise caution in chalking things up to coincidence. I think God is living and active and He wants us to open our eyes to where He is working. And even if it *was* coincidence (not ruling it out entirely) then I would be careful to write it off as solely such, because God can use even coincidences to accomplish His purposes.
Wow, does this remind you of "what came first, the chicken or the egg...." or what?!
Love ya!
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