God's randomness

My wife, Liz, teaches kindergarten in the city of Long Beach. Has for the last 13 years. She loves it and is gifted at it. This year she had a team partner who battled cancer the entire term. She was out much of the time as her cancer was stage 4. We knew she was married, with two gorgeous little girls, but not a whole lot about her personal situation beyond that. A couple of weeks ago, Liz received word that her team partner had passed away. She had been given only three months to live last August, but fought bravely for nearly a year before finally succumbing to the ravages of the disease.

Coincidentally, in the last month or so, there's been a young man who has come to the church a couple of times for assistance. And also coincidentally, his wife was ill with cancer and they had two children he was trying to take care of. Unfortunately, they seemed to have little and he was in need of basic necessities, with which we were able to help him.

Last Sunday, this young father came over to talk to me following our last service. He had his kids with him as he stood quietly, waiting for me to finish a conversation with someone else. Liz, standing next to me, told me that he looked familiar to her. She told him as he approached that he looked a lot like the husband of a woman she worked with who had recently passed away from cancer. A startled look came over him as he replied that his wife had also just died the same way. They continued to compare notes and quickly realized that his wife had been Liz's team partner!

Two seemingly disconnected people...in seemingly disconnected situations...in two different counties...over the course of a year. Their paths now melding before us in a random way. But is it really? I don't know where this path with dad and these beautiful girls may take us, or what part we might play in the days ahead. But I do believe that the randomness of God has a certainty and purpose to it beyond our vision. That what may appear to be chance or happenstance is often much, much more in the hands of the One who weaves things together for His purposes. And our job? Maybe it's to find intentionality in the randomness of life, and to respond accordingly.

At least that's our intention with a dad and his daughters.