The Mirriam Webster Dictionary defines coincidence as:
1: the act or condition of coinciding : correspondence
2: the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection
COINCIDENCE Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
I like the way that the Cambridge Dictionary defines it a bit better:
an occasion when two or more similar things happen at the same time, especially in a way that is unlikely and surprising
COINCIDENCE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
…though they both, basically, say the same thing…lol. So, let me ask you, do you believe in coincidences?
I used too. I used to think it was so cool when a friend I had been thinking about would call “out of the blue”, or I would randomly hear a song that spoke to my heart, or someone would say the exact thing I needed to hear, at the exact moment I needed to hear it.
I now know that there is no such thing as a coincidence though. There is a higher power at work here, and if we just open our hearts, God will guide us. It is happening to me more regularly these days. I just have to get the voices in my own head to be quite long enough for me to hear the message!
Yesterday morning, I was feeling overwhelmed. We are all working our asses off, and the business is still struggling to pay the bills. If we cannot make significant gains over the next six months (if the weather cooperates, and we get six more months), we will not survive another winter. I am realistic. I know that the hole did not get this deep overnight, and that we will not rise out of it overnight either, but I quite honestly just lost sight of the light at the end of the tunnel yesterday.
I listen to The Message on Sirius XM in my truck, and Olivia Lane was on when I hopped in and headed to the job site. The very first thing I heard her say, as I was pulling out of my driveway, was “…nothing is too hard for God.” That resonated with me; I needed to hear that, and it wasn’t a coincidence, it was a literal message. God was reminding me that this Mount Everest sized mountain of problems that I feel like I am facing, is nothing more than an ant hill to him.
For the longest time, before I truly reached out to God and asked him to be a part of my life, I felt like I was going through these trials alone. Yes, I have a husband, but he has no interest in the finances. He had a couple of businesses before we got married, and although he is really, really good at what he does, he will be the first to tell you that he cannot and does not want anything to do with the “business” part of a business.
A few years ago, when things were going really well with the business, I was stressing over scheduling. At that time, there were only three of us (not that four is a lot, but you would be surprised how much more we can get done when we split into teams of two and each hit a job) so we could only work on one project at a time. The last thing I wanted to do was to turn away work, but I was struggling with my OCD, trying to control every facet of each project – including the weather, which, for the record, I never did control over…lol – and it was burning me out badly.
One day, I finally decided that I needed help, so I said, “God, I am handing this over to you. You are now officially my scheduler. Please point me in the direction that we are to go, when we are to go there.” Did it feel a little crazy at first? Yep, it sure did, but guess what? It worked! Things started falling into place, not always flawlessly (there were still human hands involved, so that was to be expected), but the weight I had been carrying over that was literally lifted off of my shoulders. It was then that I felt that I had physical proof that God was listening to me, and willing to help if I simply asked.
The tough part comes when what we want and what we need are two different things, so I have had to work on how I ask for help. For example, I want to live a peaceful, prosperous, and fulfilling life, so that is what I ask for. I don’t ask for the things I believe will help me to achieve that, like a job that I can do when I feel like doing it, making a million dollars a year, and saving the world while I do it…lol…though that would provide me with a peaceful, prosperous, and fulfilling life in my eyes. I have had to let go of my ego, and the things that I associated with peace, prosperity, and fulfillment, and let God determine what I should have and should experience to gain those things, assuming those are the things that I truly need.
I am learning to enjoy the not knowing though. You know the old saying, “ignorance is bliss”? Turns out there is some truth to that! I don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, and I am not at the point, yet, where I can say that I don’t care, but I can say that I am not worried about it, because God will provide for my needs. Now, if I can just get this brain of mine to stay on task…lol…it still has a tendency to try to go all “doom and gloom” on me when I am sleeping, and my defenses are down. There are people working to prove scientifically that our bodies actually become dependent on the stress hormones we release when we get into these patterns of despair. Perhaps we can dig more into that tomorrow, but I can tell you from my own experience that it was true for me, and breaking that cycle has been (and still is at times) a struggle.
Yesterday, after being reminded that nothing is too hard for God, I ended up making up a silly song to sing in the truck while I was driving. It went something along the lines of, “Son of Man, Lamb of God, I believe in miracles, please send me a miracle, can you ask your Father for a miracle for me”…lol. The doggo liked it, and it cheered me up, so I am probably going to sing it again, and I was signing so loudly that voices in my head had no choice but to be quite for a bit 😂.
Nothing is too hard for God, but he cannot help us if we do not ask him to.
Much love to all of you, with Hope and Faith!