Seeing God
I somewhat fear that God may be conspicuously absent from my narrative about God. So here we go. I tend to see God in amazing coincidences.
A few weeks ago, some folks from my church group went out swing dancing. I did not go, for a whole list of reasons, starting with, “I wasn’t invited,” and ending with, “It was ol’ Jingle Pockets’ birthday.” My favorite reason though (not that anyone asked) was “Not after last time!”
For one thing, I was still bitter about the fact that when I had tried to organize a group to go swing dancing back in December, no one wanted to go. (Which, come to think of it, might be exactly why I wasn’t invited this time.) I did actually go that time with the friend who had suggested the idea. (Confused you for a minute there, didn’t I?) Afterwards, when asked how it went, I would reply, “It was terrible… but I had a good time!”
What was terrible? My dancing? Well, obviously that… but I was actually referring to the situation as terrible. It was bad enough that no one else wanted to go, but in particular, that no ladies wanted to go. So it was just us two guys in a room full of dancing strangers.
Now, I knew that someone would probably ask me later if I had actually danced, and I would hate to have to say, “No.” More to the point, it would be quite a waste to have come all this way just to stand around and watch, because quite frankly, that wasn’t much fun at all. So I came up with the plan of observing carefully to find some wallflower who also didn’t know anyone there but clearly wanted to dance and was just waiting for someone to take notice of her. The only question remaining was, “How many beers do I have to drink before I’m willing to ask a total stranger if I can stomp all over her feet?”
I am not fundamentally opposed to drinking. I just decided a long time ago that it wasn’t something that I needed anymore. I really don’t care for the taste of alcohol, I would only drink for the effect, and that is something the Bible is clearly against. I do, however, drink on occasion under special circumstances. (Some of you are perhaps remembering a certain other recent occurrence, which was also rather questionable.) So there I was, a beer and a half in, already feeling rather tipsy (which was pretty disappointing for a guy who used to put down half a bottle of tequila in a single sitting), and I suddenly started thinking, “What the hell am I doing?” I may drink on special occasions, but this hardly qualifies. Here I was, drinking specifically for the purpose of getting drunk enough to do something that I would never do otherwise.
Having recently renewed my faith in God, I began to pray. I don’t remember what I prayed. I don’t think I even finished before my inebriated mind wandered off to other things. However, shortly thereafter, a girl came up to me and asked if I went to Trinity. Being a good fifty miles or so away from the church, I could only think, “Is she talking about the same Trinity? That was a hell of a guess.” She asked if I remembered her and told me her name. The truth is, I didn’t recognize her in the slightest… but I did remember meeting someone with that name not so long ago.
The point is, now I had someone to dance with. From my own church no less. Trust in Him, and God will provide.
Another incident also occurred in December. I had convinced my family to make charitable donations in lieu of Christmas gifts that year. So I was poking around online and got off on a slight tangent involving foreign adoptions. I don’t generally like to admit to even having any long term goals, but let’s just say that if I did, foreign adoption would be one of them. So I was reading about this organization that specializes in that, and there was a link to find out where they would be holding informational meetings. So I clicked on that. There were only about half a dozen states represented, but California happened to be one of them. So I clicked on that. I discovered that there was a meeting that very weekend, only three days away. Now if it was in LA, that would not be particularly surprising. In fact there were a few in LA in the coming months, along with San Diego and other metropolitan areas. However, this particular one that caught my attention was being held in Redlands, at The River church, which is WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF MY HOUSE. Could this have possibly been any more neatly packaged and delivered right to my front door? It had also recently come to my attention that not one but two of my female friends were also passionate about adoption. (Though they never actually mentioned the word “foreign.”)
What does all of this mean? As it happens, I had already planned on going to Mexico that weekend, and after mulling this over for awhile, I told myself rather sternly, “It doesn’t mean anything! Just stick with the plan, and whatever you do, keep your mouth shut!”
So I did, and I did. Well, up until now I guess.