Random Thoughts

(November 24, 2012)

I firmly believe there are no coincidences in life.

This morning I ended up sharing a breakfast table at the hotel buffet with a “stranger.” I had jogged for 30 minutes EXPRESSLY so that I could have a waffle. 🙂 By the time I got to the dining room, there were no free tables. Not wanting to be the “loner” that I typically am, I asked a friendly-looking woman sitting alone if I could share her table. She invited me to sit and told me she was waiting for her son.

Not wanting to disturb each other, each of us simply read and ate in silence. As I got up to go, we exchanged kind words. Noticing her accent, I asked her, “Sind Sie Deutsch?” (Are you German?) Her eyes lit up, and out poured a flurry of German I struggled to understand. My German is VERY rusty! I blame my French-speaking husband for that. 🙂 She invited me to sit again, and thus began a very warm and sincere conversation (in my very broken German, which I was very happy to be trying to use again). I told her about how I had spent time in Germany and that Munich is one of my absolute favorite cities in the world.

Again her eyes lit up! “I’m from Munich!,” she exclaimed.

Turns out she was on her way back home to Munich having arrived in Los Angeles ten days prior to visit her sister who had been very ill. Sadly, her sister passed away two days ago. I shared with her that I am here in the Los Angeles area for the memorial service of my good friend and college roommate who succumbed to IBC twelve days ago.

Again with the eyes! “My sister had cancer too.”

Somewhere toward the end of our conversation she remarked that her son never showed up and probably had gone back to sleep. Probably did, smart boy, but I don’t believe he was meant to show up. I believe God intended for us, two “strangers,” to meet and have this “relationship moment.”

There’s a line in a song we’re offering up later today: “Each and every moment, what’s good and what gets broken, happens just the way You planned.” “Who would’ve thought that I would have had such an encounter? What a wonderful coincidence! I could never have imagined it,” she said as we were parting. “There are no coincidences,” I replied…and she agreed.

“Each and every moment…happens just the way You planned.”