Is It Odd or God?

Eli and I listened to a speaker this week at an AA meeting in Texas, and she made reference to how we all experience “coincidences” in life. I don’t think I believe in coincidences anymore (the speaker didn’t seem to either). Let me explain.

Haven’t you ever prayed for something to happen or not happen and that prayer gets answered in some unexpected way? Maybe you really want a day off work, and you suddenly come down with the flu or something. You got what you asked for–maybe just not in the way you intended.

When I look back on most of the events in my life, I can find some weird cause and effect type situations. A biggie for me was losing my mother at a young age. I was confused, upset, mad, sad, lonely…all the things most any 18-year-old would feel. My mother passing did a lot of things. It taught me what it meant to learn to be self-reliant. It taught me when and how to depend on others. It taught me a lot about myself.

My mother’s passing caused my sister and I to form an irreplaceable bond. That bond would later become tattered and pretty much non-existent, but it was wonderful for a long time. I really cherish those times and am so thankful I got to live in that place and time with my sister. Had my mother not died, leading me to move in with my sister and her family, we might not have gotten as close as we did. Being born 9 years apart, we grew up very differently, so it was a blessing that we had one another in adulthood.

Had I not left my hometown to move in with my sister in Illinois upon my mom’s passing, I may not have found my way back into college. In college is where I met my future husband. College and working in the bars placed us in the same places at the same time. This is also where our journey into alcoholism would begin. Sounds like a precursor to a curse, right? Yes and no.

Sometimes people learn lessons from watching others and taking caution. Sometimes we learn to recognize addictive tendencies and poor choices in decision making. And sometimes, we can just be idiots to be quite honest. “It can’t happen to me.” Or “I am too smart to become an addict.” Or my personal favorite, “I am in control and can stop anytime I want.” Riiigggght. No one (at least not anyone I have met) planned on doing anything stupid that would forever change their life’s path negatively (and possibly ruin it).

I don’t have a firm stance on nature vs. nurture (meaning something you are born with or something you grow to learn from others). I know some people who grew up in fantastic homes filled with love and kindness who still became addicts/alcoholics. I also know people who grew up with quite the opposite–abuse, trauma, poverty, etc. And some of those people never touched alcohol or drugs. So, I don’t know if it boils down to genetics or environment or what exactly.

For me, God has played a huge part in my life, even as an alcoholic. I knew what I was doing wasn’t right, and it definitely wasn’t pleasing to any Higher Power (wherever your beliefs reside). The “coincidences” in life as we often call them have proven to be more of a God thing and not an Odd thing for me. Did I want to become an alcoholic and make poor choices and almost ruin my life? Of course not. Is that what my husband wanted for himself? Definitely not. But somehow, we found each other (remember, I would have never moved here had my mother not died, ending in my relocating to southern Illinois). Had we not met, would we have found our way out of alcoholism? I don’t know. There is no way to know. But I do think it was a God thing for us to meet and experience trials and overcome them together.

I am not always excited to announce at AA meetings and elsewhere that I am an alcoholic. But I am proud to tell people that I am a recovering alcoholic and then share that message with them. If I hadn’t experienced the things I have, I wouldn’t be in a position to help others. So, I don’t find it odd that I have always loved to write and now am able to use that love to reach out to others. Not necessarily with just addiction but with lots of things life tosses our way.

It is not always easy to see why things are happening in our lives as they are happening. It sometimes takes weeks or months or even years to realize there was a reason behind what was happening. A greater purpose that will present itself when the time is just right. We don’t always recognize these as “God” things and just find them to be “Odd” things. I know in my life today; I try to be very aware of events and people and situations and how those things might later benefit myself or someone else in times of need. It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always pleasant. But I find that when I connect those dots looking back, God is most definitely working in my life. Sometimes I just have to take a step back and think and pray and let the plan unfold in the way God intended. The message is always there if you want to see it.