my times are in your hands

"My times are in your hands" (Psalm 31:5) - two days in a row we received this verse in a card in the mail.

A wonderful reminder that it is God who ordains and numbers our days (Psalm 139:6; Job 14:5) - not, ultimately, illness or health professionals.

Jesus said, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?" (Luke 12:25) - an encouragement against health anxiety.

Our times are in his hands.

what I'm reading: God's wisdom in our suffering

Do you have a copy of  Knowing God? Is it gathering dust? Is the picture of a sunset on the cover a little faded?

Why not get it off the shelf and read chapter 9, on the wisdom of God? Or read it online here.

It's a little gem I haven't noticed before.

Last week I learned how, even if I never know the cause of suffering, I can always know something of God's purpose.

This week I opened Knowing God and discovered part of God's purpose in suffering.

In chapter 9 Packer talks about Abraham and Jacob and Joseph. He shows how every trial was individually chosen by God to make them into the people he wanted them to be. I read this through twice, I found it so encouraging!

If it's true for them, it's true for me. Packer says,

These things are written for our learning, for the same wisdom orders the Christian's life today.

We should not be taken aback when unexpected and upsetting and discouraging things happen to us now.

What do they mean? Simply that God in his wisdom means to make something of us which we have not attained yet, and he is dealing with us accordingly.

Perhaps he means to strengthen us in patience, good humor, compassion, humility, or meekness, by giving us some extra practice in exercising these graces under especially difficult conditions.

Perhaps he has new lessons in self-denial and self-distrust to teach us.

Perhaps he wishes to break us of complacency, or unreality, or undetected forms of pride and conceit.

Perhaps his purpose is simply to draw us closer to himself in conscious communion with him; for it is often the case, as all the saints know, that fellowship with the Father and the Son is most vivid and sweet, and Christian joy is greatest, when the cross is heaviest.

Or perhaps God is preparing us for forms of service of which at present we have no inkling.

"He knows the way he taketh", even if for the moment we do not.

We may be frankly bewildered at things that happen to us, but God knows exactly what he is doing, and what he is after, in his handling of our affairs.

Always, and in everything, he is wise: we shall see that hereafter (Job in heaven knows the full reason why he was afflicted, though he never knew it in this life).

Meanwhile, we ought not to hesitate to trust his wisdom, even when he leaves us in the dark.

Whatever further purpose a Christian's troubles may or may not have in equipping him for future service, they will always have at least that purpose which Paul's thorn in the flesh had (2 Cor 5:7-9).

They will have been sent us to make and keep us humble, and to give us a new opportunity of showing forth the power of Christ in our mortal lives.

And do we ever need to know any more about them than that? 

Once Paul saw that his trouble was sent him to enable him to glorify Christ, he accepted it as wisely appointed and even rejoiced in it.

God give us grace, in all our own troubles, to go and do likewise.

God’s gifts in suffering (4) Suffering deepens our knowledge of God

For I know that the Lord is great,
and that our Lord is above all gods.
Whatever the Lord pleases, he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps. (Psalm 135:5,6)

I write this post with a heavy heart, because we are neck-deep in this particular season of suffering. It’s not showing any signs of letting up, at least for now. It’s only bearable because God no longer seems like a stranger.

Of all the effects of suffering, this is one of the most disquieting: the God I meet in suffering is different from the God I thought I knew. It’s as if you turn to a friend and catch an expression on their face that you never expected to see there. Your wife of twenty years does something so completely out of character that you wonder if you really know her. Your father turns out to be fundamentally different to the man you loved and respected all these years.

The fault, of course, doesn’t lie with God. It never did. It’s that we live with unconscious assumptions about God and his dealings towards us, beliefs that would probably horrify us if we pulled them into the light (“I am exempt.” “God will do what I ask.” “That would never happen to me.”). So we leave our assumptions hidden and unquestioned, where they lend us a kind of empty comfort. The worst will never come, because… (here we fill in our own A, B and C).

This can happen even if we are well-prepared, our theology of suffering carefully laid down. In my early 20s, I read How Long O Lord, because we were told that those who read this book would be ready for suffering when it came. There was great truth in that. I still repeat this lesson to those younger than me. I don’t know how I would have weathered this storm without a strong doctrine of God’s sovereignty and goodness in suffering. But it doesn’t matter how prepared you are, suffering always comes as a surprise.

The storm front approaches, but you don’t see it coming. The world crumbles, the earth shakes, and you cry out in shock. Cracks appear in your theology. Suffering forces its way in and wedges them apart. They grow bigger and bigger, until your view of God threatens to collapse like a house on the sand. Suffering shows you the weak points. It enlarges them and says, “There!”.

I’m sure the weak points are different for everyone, but in my case, as I watch my son trudge through days of pain, it doesn’t take long to realise there’s something odd about my view of God’s providence. I can’t understand why medicine helps but God, it seems, doesn’t. Is it that he can’t? Or that he won’t? I know it’s not the first, but I can’t quite get my head around the second.

My son’s doctors, on the other hand, seem eager to help. They can’t do much, but what they can do, they do. It’s the same with the people around me. So why does God seem so unwilling? Why is he depending on medicine, when he could heal with a single thought? At some level, a level I barely dare to acknowledge, I ask, “Doesn’t he want to? Is he powerless? Does he care?”

So I turn to the same place I turned to all those years ago. I open How Long O Lord and struggle through those last, difficult chapters on God’s providence. I begin to read Joni Tada Eareckson and Stephen Estes’ When God Weeps, and Paul Grimmond’s Suffering Well. I search the Scriptures, and painstakingly rebuild my theology, brick by brick, starting with these words by Don Carson:

A miracle is not an instance of God doing something for a change; it is an instance of God doing something out of the ordinary. That God normally operates the universe consistently makes science possible; that he does not always do so ought to keep science humble.1

An odd paragraph to bring so much comfort; but comfort me it does. I begin to see that the God who made and sustains the universe works through medicine as well as what we call “miracles”: they are both gifts direct from his hands. Health slowly and painstakingly regained, or never regained at all, is as much an indication of his love as instant healing. What he wants to do in us may take time and hardship. His plans for us are bigger and better than the ones we make for ourselves.

The God I am getting to know is no cheap-and-easy vending machine: put in a dollar, get out a chocolate bar. He’s our Father, wise beyond knowing. His mercy is severe and his love relentless. He may never give us what we ask for, and we may never know why; but this God, who gave his only Son to die for us, who knows suffering from the inside out, can be trusted to be just and loving and good. As my knowledge of him deepens, he no longer seems like a stranger. I run into his arms and find comfort and strength and a secure refuge (Ps 46:1).

The God I meet in suffering isn’t the God I thought I knew. He’s better.


1. Don Carson, How Long O Lord, page 217.

When God Weeps - part 3 - the "how" of suffering

I have a friend who suffers from chronic pain. She's had it most of her life, since an accident as a teenager. Of all the books she's read on suffering, the one she loves most is Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps.

There's no higher recommendation than that!

Now that I've finished, what do I think of When God Weeps? I can't imagine a better book to give those who are in the middle of suffering, once they have reached a point where they are able to reflect on things again.

My friend and I agree that the best thing about When God Weeps is the way it moves between the theological and the experiential. It helps that it's written by Joni, deeply experienced in long-term suffering; and Stephen Estes, a capable theologian. Both write with great sympathy and with a colourful, lively style, and Estes writes with clear logic.

I don't agree with every sentence. I'm a bit hesitant about statements like this - "God may not initiate all our trials - but by the time they reach us, they are his will for us" (does this really express God's absolute sovereignty in all things?) - but I appreciate the tension between God's sovereignty and human responsibility that Estes is trying to uphold. And he does say, "No trial reaches us apart from God's explicit decree". So my hesitations are slight.

It was an absolute treat reading the third and final section. It's called "How can I hang on?", and it's about how to suffer well. There are four chapters, sometimes surprising in their content:

• Cry of the soul - Wise words about anger at God, how it can lead to bitterness, and where it really belongs: in honest expression to God, so that it moves us, not away from him, but towards him. Here we may not find answers, but we will find his comforting arms.
• Gaining contentment - I like Joni's "arithmetic of contentment": when we suffer, we subtract our wants so our desires equal our circumstances, and gain what is of far greater value: Christ's sufficiency in our need, the joy of knowing God, and the advancement of his kingdom.
• Suffering gone malignant - I wasn't expecting a chapter on hell in a book on suffering, yet it really does belong here. Estes reminds us why hell is necessary, because it's God's answer to both terrible injustice and the evil at the heart of "good" people. It also explains why Christians suffer, because "hell's splashover" prepares us for eternity and moves us to reach out to others.
• Suffering Gone - This was perhaps the highlight of the book for me. Every word spoke to my need. In suffering we need a future perspective (so hard when pain is present!). We need to remember that heaven is a Person, not just a place, that it is so much more than we can imagine, and that the way we bear suffering now will win us a rich reward in eternity. 

By the end of When God Weeps I was in tears. A bit embarrassing since I was in public at the time!

We will all suffer, so we all need books like When God Weeps. I recommend it highly, both for those who haven't suffered greatly yet and for those who are suffering.

what I'm reading: When God Weeps - part 1 - God's character in suffering

I am reading the most wonderful book - Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps - and wondering why no one recommended it to me sooner.

Maybe God was saving it for this time. I'm so glad he did!

When I suffer, I need someone to weep with me. I need, at least at some level, to understand. I don't need evasions and empty words, but comfort and true hope.

So far (I've only read the first section) this book gives me these in abundance:

• It's beautifully written in colourful, fresh prose that surprises and moves me with God's truth (you'll love this retelling of Jesus' death).
• It's honest about just how bad suffering can be. It doesn't pretend things are better than they are, but weeps with those who weep.
• It's full of true, tested comfort because it's written by someone deeply experienced in suffering: quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada.
• It's thoughtful and biblical. Co-author Stephen Estes handles the difficult doctrine of God's loving and sovereign purpose in suffering with clarity and accuracy.

Here's a quote I read, and knew immediately I would post. Every word spoke deep into my need.

First, despite Christ's compassionate death for our sins, God's plan - not plan B or C or D, but his plan - calls for all Christians to suffer, sometimes intensely. To encourage us, he may write some light moments into the script of our lives - he may include adventure or romance. An amusing situation will get us chuckling, and an occasional twist of plot may delight us to tears, for God loves to give. But without fail, some scenes are going to break your heart, some of your favourite characters will die, and the movie may end earlier than you wish.

Second, God's plan is specific ... He screens the trials that come to each of us - allowing only those that accomplish his good plan, because he takes no joy in human agony. These trials aren't evenly distributed from person to person. This can discourage us, for we aren't privy to his reasons. But in God's wisdom and love, every trial in a Christian's life is ordained from eternity past, custom-made for that believer's eternal good, even when it doesn't seem like it. Nothing happens by accident... not even tragedy... not even sins committed against us.

Third, the core of his plan is to rescue us from our sins ... God cares most - not about making us comfortable - but about teaching us to hate our sins, grow spiritually, and love him. To do this, he gives us salvation's benefits only gradually, sometimes painfully gradually. In other words, he lets us continue to feel much of sin's sting while we are headed for heaven. This constantly reminds us of what we're being delivered from, exposing sin for the poison it is. Thus evil (suffering) is turned on it's head to defeat evil (sin) - all to the praise of God's wisdom.

Last, every sorrow we taste will one day prove to be the best possible thing that could have happened. We will thank God endlessly in heaven for the trials he sent us here. This is not Disneyland - it is truth.

Quote is from Joni Eareckson Tada and Stephen Estes' When God Weeps p. 56, emphases in bold mine.

what I'm reading: when our hopes are disappointed from The Briefing

Here's a wonderful reminder, from a woman battling long-term illness, that when life goes in a different direction to what we expected - when we struggle with broken dreams and disappointed hopes - when we're in the middle of a difficult season that doesn't seem to end - God is still faithfully working in our lives for his glory.

I had so many plans, hopes and dreams for my days on this earth, but I'm learning I'm to surrender even these to God. I thought I had good plans, but God's promise is that his plans are best. He's reminding me that the main purpose of my life isn't to necessarily do all these things (though I would greatly enjoy that!), it's to bring glory to my creator and Saviour, whatever my life looks like. My hopes and dreams seem distant, and often even dead, but God's work of shaping me into Jesus' likeness has been made even more alive by this trial (1 Pet 1:6-7). May I accept that he is the one that chooses how he will use me for his glory. I need to want for my life what God wants for my life (Matt 6:9-10), even when that means missing out on things I deeply desire, and to learn that there are more important things than what I think will make me happy or successful.

From the Briefing article "Giving up your life" by Rachel Pettett, who has suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome for 3 years.

image is by sweethardt from flickr

what I'm reading: not needing to make sense of it from in tandem

When bad things happen, I try to work out why. This isn't just when big things go wrong, but also during the small inconveniences of life.

Why can't I find a parking spot when we're already late for school? Why did our car battery go flat? Why have I got a cold? What is God trying to teach me? As you can imagine, asking "why?" can get very exhausting.

The following words jumped out at me when in tandem arrived in my inbox last Monday. They're from one of my favourite books, Respectable Sins, by one of my favourite authors, Jerry Bridges, introduced by Nicole :

Bridges actually says that we don't have to work out the exact way that God might use a painful event, but we:

...are to give God thanks that He will use the situation in some way to develop our Christian character. We don't need to speculate as to how He might use it, for His ways are often mysterious and beyond our understanding. So by faith in the promise of God in Rom 8:28-29, we obey the command of 1 Thess 5:18 to give thanks in all circumstances.

I've been trying to remember this. When the traffic lights are red, or I break my favourite mug, or my child wakes up vomiting, I don't need to know why. What I do need to know is that God is sovereign, wise and good. Instead of trusting my ability to figure out the answer to the question "why?", I need to trust in Him.

Brought to you courtesy of in tandem.

untethered

Written two days ago.

It's 1.51 pm when our car turns into the driveway after our seaside holiday.

Somehow, the house looks shabbier than when we left. I see it half with the eyes of an owner, and half with the eyes of a stranger, as if I'm wearing 3D goggles.

The grass is shaggy and overlong. A faded brown Christmas tree lies at the foot of the driveway. I'm relieved to see that the two pot-plants near the front steps are still green and healthy. Two unopened parcels are propped next to the front door (the postman, at least, knows we've been away).

We open the door, and we're greeted by the detritus we didn't have time to tidy away before we left. The house smells comfortingly familiar, but also like it belongs to someone else. The Venus fly trap we gave our son for Christmas is holding onto life by its dry root tips.

I stand at the sink, and for a flickering moment I see a view of rolling green seaside hills through the blank tiled wall. I look out the back window, and the view of gum trees looks dry and yellow through the lingering perspective of breaking waves in a deep blue sea. I feel unbalanced, as if my feet are reaching for sand through the smooth floorboards.

The holiday recedes like a wave tugging on my legs, and the year's responsibilities threaten like dark clouds on the horizon. Three and a half more weeks' bobbing on the lazy waves of school holidays; twenty-five days (but who's counting?) until we're dragged into the rip current of term time.

The year feels frail and uncertain, as if I don't want to rest my full weight on it quite yet. Last year was hard, and I'm a little nervous about this one. I've cut down on my responsibilities to avoid last year's burnout, but I've also lost some of my confidence and enthusiasm. I'm not yet sure of the me I'm stepping into this year with.

Earlier this afternoon, on the boring road from Geelong to Melbourne, I opened The Time Traveler's Wife and read its first pages. I feel like a time traveller myself, lost between times, floating through space. I know God holds the other end of this string. I know I'm tethered. I know it, but I don't feel it, not yet.

All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:16

It's true even when I don't feel it.

image is from amangupta at flickr

tangles untangled

For a long time now - just over a year, to be exact, since I started this whole blogging business, and forcibly ripped my brain from the murkiness of breastfeeding and babies into the competing demands of childrearing and ministry - I've been struggling to keep the different strands of research projects and family needs and books to read and household tasks and ministry responsibilities separate in my head.

Like a tangled ball of yarn, they knot themselves around each other, a mess of incomplete ideas and unmet responsibilities and unfinished tasks, and sit somewhere inside me, an undigested mass in my gut, pressing upwards on my diaphragm, pressing on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

I pray for God to untangle the ball. Occasionally, I tease a thread loose and pray about it. God responds, and unknots a strand or two, relieves the tightness and anxiety, and replaces it with his peace. But I glance away from him, and before I know it, another pressing responsibility, another incomplete project, another forgotten task tangles itself into the ball, and there it is again, cutting off my breath. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Some weeks ago, as I sat on my rock and prayed, an amazing thing happened: my perspective shifted sideways and I saw things differently.

The tangled ball of yarn was still there - the threads of ideas half-examined and tasks half-done and topics half-tackled and responsibilities half-met and books half-read and people half-cared for. But the threads were no longer tangled in my mind's eye.

Each thread lay, a separate and glowing strand, weaving over and under one another, but without knots or tangles. Some strands had been laid aside for a time, to be picked up later; others ended or began at certain points; still others lay in my hand, being woven into the pattern. Not a mess of knotted and tangled threads, but a neat bundle of coloured yarn, with each strand finding its place in the whole.

What this means for me, perfectionist and control-freak that I am, is that I don't need to keep track of every thread. I can lay one down and pick it up again or not as the case may be. My life doesn't depend on my ability to keep things organised, understood, and under control. Thoughts come and thoughts go, responsibilities are taken up and laid aside, projects are tackled and abandoned, but I can trust God to take care of the whole.

And if I (speaking sententiously and in cliches now!) am God's tapestry, and he is the weaver, who am I to think I can keep every strand clear and distinct and in my sight at all times? My job is to be faithful to God's word and to the people he has given me to care for, but only God sees every motive and perceives every thought and watches over every responsibility. I make plans, but he is the master designer who shapes my days (Prov 16:9, 19:21).

When I look back over my life from the perspective of heaven, I will see how every thought, every task, every responsibility was taken and used by him for the glory of his Son. And that is enough for me. That is knowledge too wonderful for me.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

images are from stock.xchng

the waves and the "why?"

It was a funny old holiday.

Half way through Christmas afternoon, my throat developed that threatening soreness which is the first sign of a cold or flu, and by 2.00 that night the pain woke me with a start when I swallowed.

It stayed like that through a day of tidying up after Christmas and packing for our beachside holiday, segued into feeling tired and off-colour for the long trip down, and for the first 2 days of our holiday I could only lie on the sofa while my parents took the children to the beach. Three weeks later I'm still feeling tired.

We left Steve at home for a break. He was going to come and join us, but when I rang he had a fever and was barely moving, let alone driving 4 hours to Apollo Bay. Ten days later I returned to a very sick husband, with an awful cough which developed into acute laryngitis. He's even now dragging himself from bed to bath to chair, and is definitely not ready for a return to work, which was supposed to start a week ago. Holidays, wiped out; year, in disarray.

And I'm left trying to see the "why". I think being sick was good for me, because it brought me to a complete halt. I was exhausted after an overly busy year, and needed to stop and do nothing. God knew what he was doing. And if there were less meditative walks along the beach, and no swimming in the surf, I treasured every moment.

Instead of doing what I always do on holidays - asking myself if I'm really making the most of it (applying perfectionism to relaxation) - I found myself intensely grateful for every moment: the waves curling and racing in towards the sand, my 2-year-old laughing as he discovered the joy of splashing through foaming water, and quiet hours spent playing games and reading to children on the grey days (of which there were many).

But if I can find a reason for my own relatively minor sickness, Steve's far more severe illness isn't so easily explained away. I can't see any higher purpose in him being dreadfully ill right through a much needed holiday, and into another demanding year of full time ministry. I can't see any point in him missing his normal holiday with the children, one of the few times they enjoy each others' undivided attention. If I was in control of the universe, I would have arranged things differently.

I always want to know why - to understand God's purpose in every bout of sickness and every painful experience - but what arrogance this is on my part! How great is my need to be in control, even of how God is growing me in godliness! Sometimes I think I see a reason for suffering, but often the reason will remain a mystery. Only God is Creator and Lord of all. Only he ultimately knows why. I can trust him with every one of our days.

One scene from our holiday plays like a moving picture across my mind. My mother and I were going for an evening walk, watching the waves crash on the rocks in the light of the setting sun. We came to a small bay, where the waves run up a steeply sloping beach between two rocky outcrops. The water was unusually calm, filling the bay with the heavy silkiness of molten metal, each ripple edged with glowing silver. It seemed to me that the water was cupped in the palms of two great hands.

We may not know why the waves come, breaking with violence over our heads: but here we will always be, held in the hands of God.

PhDs and providence

What a waste of time my 5 years writing a PhD could have been!

I'm not sure why I did a PhD. Probably a hang-over from my private schooling: if you transfer to Arts after 1 year of Medicine, you'd better justify your choice by getting some letters after your name.

I really wanted to go to theology college, but Steve and I couldn't both afford it. So if the government was handing out scholarships, why not study theology disguised as church history?

Such noble goals!

I chose my topic fairly randomly. I couldn't do Reformation history because I didn't know French, German or Latin, not having done any particularly useful subjects during Arts.

But I was chatting with Gordo one memorable day when he suggested: "How about the Puritans? They were the evangelicals of sixteenth century England!" (He was doing a Masters on the Puritans, and as far as I know, is doing it still.)

So the topic "The Puritan quest for enjoyment of God" was born.

A few days ago, I was staring at my over-loaded bookshelf, when I noticed how many of the topics I write and speak about were covered by my PhD:

- the greatness of God, who created us not from need, but for his glory;
- the grace of God, who set his love on us before the foundation of the world;
- the Puritans, who lived for God with passion and purpose;
- the spiritual marriage between Christ and the church;
- the inexpressible and glorious joy which is ours in Christ;
- holiness, fighting the battle against sin in thought, word and deed;
- spiritual disciplines, like prayer, meditation and soliloquy;
- psychology, how to respond to issues like depression, anxiety and discouragement;
- faithful marriage and family life, shaped by God's priorities.

Those 5 years shut away in my study were a brilliant preparation for every minute of motherhood and ministry afterwards.

In God's good providence, nothing is wasted. Not even a casual comment. Not even a mixture of motives. Not even 5 years in the wilderness writing a PhD.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16

the true story of a small miracle

We've been blessed with good neighbours.

On one side, most weekends you can see Paul up on the roof painting, laying guttering, clearing leaves, and dispensing good advice to his less home-maintenance-savvy neighbours. Every now and again his grandson pops his head over the fence, and shares dreams of wild adventure with our kids.

On the other side, in a gingerbread-brown house with white edging, live David and Lisa with their two sons, Alan and Ian, the same age as our middle two boys. Lisa and I have become friends, and I can talk quite openly with her about my faith: we meet for coffee, we chat on the phone, and our younger sons went to play gym together.

David and Lisa's older son Alan is autistic. Although he's at the milder end of the spectrum, he goes to a school for autistic children, and Lisa devotes hours to teaching him. We've invited Alan over to play with Ben - they are both passionate about mathematics, after all - but it's been difficult for them to form a connection.

A month ago Ben was paired up to do maths at school with an autistic boy called Alan. The teacher knew they both loved maths, and wanted to increase Ben's confidence by entrusting him with Alan's care. Knowing that the boy next door doesn't go to our children's school, I was pleased for Ben, but thought nothing of it.

Earlier this year, in a moment of irrational generosity, I agreed to help with the Red Cross Appeal. Two weeks ago we were asking for donations at local houses. When we reached our neighbours' house, I asked if Alan could possibly be going to our children's school. "No, he goes to a school for autistic children," David answered.

We continued our hot and sweaty walk around the court, knocking on doors and receiving no response, when a voice called from behind me: "Jean! Wait! Alan does go to the local school twice a week! Is that the school your children go to?"

You can guess the rest: even though his teacher didn't know they were neighbours, she paired Ben to work with the boy next door.

What happened next was so lovely, it took my breath away. Alan, who finds it difficult to form friendships, came out of his front door and tried to cross the court to get to Ben. Although he struggles to make eye-contact, he was glancing up at Ben, smiling a slight smile.

Our school was the last one David and Lisa tried, since it didn't claim to have an integration program - but it turned out to be the only local school interested in welcoming Alan. He will probably be in Ben's class full-time next year, and his brother Ian may well be in Thomas' prep class.

How wonderful our God is! How he weaves the circumstances of our lives, small happenings as well as large, and links us with other people for their blessing and ours! He knew where we would live, he knew who our neighbours would be, he knew how the details of our lives would mesh together.

How grateful I am for the small miracles which scatter our lives.

Names have been changed in this post.