Life Coincidences - Yes or No?

Last week I had invited myself and my husband to our younger son’s house for a Friday night cookout. Brazen – yes – but I really enjoy being with the kids, and my daughter-in-law is so gracious and accommodating. She immediately emailed me back with an enthusiastic YES! and a further invitation to spend the night and they’d set up a movie in the backyard when it got dark. Great! Super! I was pumped. But the next day I got a call from my son. Hmmm…different story. Ohio State had it opener on Saturday and he had tickets and they’d be tailgating and yada yada yada…wouldn’t another weekend work better? OK, sure, no problem. So my husband and I were sitting on our porch, reading at about 10 PM Friday evening when the doorbell rang. It was dark and we couldn’t imagine who it might be at that hour. He went to answer it and called out to me that an old friend was here – someone we had not seen in years. She came in with her young son and we had the nicest visit. As it got later though, I kept wondering what was going on – why she was not making an attempt to leave. After all, her 6-year-old son was already asleep in her lap…and then the sadness began. She related the story of her family’s dysfunction – that after her mom died, they all pretty much went their own way, and one brother “scammed” her out of the money necessary to keep the family home – her home. She was temporarily living in a rental, but needed some quick cash by the following morning in order to save her belongings from being trashed by the owner of a storage unit. We decided that she must have been very desperate to have come to us who hadn’t seen her in so long, and just hours before she would lose everything. Then I began thinking that had we gone to our son’s, we would not have been there when she needed help. People often say that there are no coincidences in life, and I have never known what to think of that statement. I still don’t, but it does now give me pause. I so believe that we’re a family here on the planet, and the opportunity to put that philosophy (and gospel lesson) to work is a gift. Our friend will probably never suspect the gift she gave to my husband and me on a summer Friday night.