No Such Thing As Coincidence

The phrase "everything happens for a reason" has become quite a cliche. I've always believed it to be true, but I don't think I quite understood the power behind it until just recently.

I just finished reading a book called Another Valley, Another Victory, Another Love by Valetta Steel Crumley. Valetta came to speak at my MOPS group meeting and gave her testimony. Wow... what an amazing woman! She has been through more tragedy in her lifetime than I could possibly imagine someone could go through, and yet she's still standing, still living, still loving, still praising God more than ever.

In her testimony, Valetta spoke to us about the death of her first child by Leukemia, at only 2 years old, and the death of her husband... and when she finally got to the part about how her oldest 2 children were killed instantly in a car crash several years later, there was not a dry eye in the room. Some people may find her story somewhat depressing, but I left that day so inspired! I left there wanting the peace in my life that she has. On my way out I grabbed her book, wanting to know more about her story and how she got to this point in her life, how she made it through all of the trials that God placed before her. And I was counting my blessings, so glad that I've never had to experience that kind of pain and suffering. At least not yet anyway.

After I finished reading, I found myself really craving to continue the growth in my own life and pondering once again, my purpose. So I dusted off My Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, which I had started reading a year or two ago and for whatever reason never finished it. I picked up from where I had left off on chapter 25, and low and behold, the chapter is called "Transformed by Trouble." How "coincidental" that I was just reading about this in Valetta's book.

In chapter 25, Rick speaks not just to the fact that God has a plan for my life, but that He has a purpose behind every single challenge that I face. When I sit back and look at the toughest times in my life... my period of depression that resulted in a struggle in my marriage and other relationships and a lot of counseling... a great deal of good came out of what seemed like such a bad time! I would be nowhere near the person I am today had I not gone through those things. Rick also writes that God "uses circumstances to develop our character," and that not all of our problems are big, but "all are significant in God's growth process for [us]."

Then I started thinking, if we never faced trouble in our lives, we wouldn't learn, we wouldn't grow. There would be no purpose. When I really open my eyes to this concept in my daily life, I can truly see God working in everything I do, whether it's teaching me patience when my 2-year-old is in a tantrum or while I'm sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic, or giving up control when things aren't going as planned, or putting my faith into Him for security instead of money and other earthly things. And I think sometimes it isn't quite as obvious at the time, but that I will have an opportunity to pass on what I've learned to someone else down the road who's struggling with the same issues.

I've tried to understand the reasons for why things happen in my life, and sometimes the light bulb goes on and I'm able to make connections and it's really exciting to be able to say, "oh yeah! I see now!" But when I try to understand too much at one time, it just gets too overwhelming. And I don't think we were meant to necessarily understand why everything happens, but more importantly, what can we learn from it?

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." ~Romans 8:28