God Winks

I just finished reading When God Winks at You by SQuire Rushnell. The basic premise of the book is that God makes his presence known in our everyday lives by very specific, what you might say, coincidences, which really aren't coincidences at all. The winks may be big or may be small, but they are a special way that God communicates with us. It's as if He's saying directly to a person, "I'm here. I'm thinking of you, and I love you."

I could make endless lists of the God-winks I've experienced in my life, but the biggest God-wink by far has been through my husband, Matt, and how God so clearly and purposefully set us up, throughout our whole lives, to be together at a very specific time.

Let me illustrate as I walk you through our very parallel lives.

1. Matt and I were both born in Seattle, Washington, 8 months apart. {God: wink.}

2. We were both born to fathers who were {and still are} ministers in the denomination of the Church of God. {God: wink.}

3. Because of this connection, our fathers were acquaintances and both were part of a group of ministers that met monthly for breakfast in the Seattle-area. {God: wink.}

4. Fast forward to the years 1990-1991: both of our families relocated to southwestern Michigan. {God: wink.}

5. Matt and I have both done trips to very random locations with our families, usually within a year or so of one another. Example: visiting Wall Drug in South Dakota, visiting the Precious Moments Chapel in Missouri, and white water rafting on the New River in West Virginia. {God: wink.}

6. Being PK's or "Pastor's Kids," we were both very involved in our church youth groups growing up. And with us both growing up in southwestern Michigan, Matt and I attended countless state or regional youth group events at the same time, such as the Michigan's State Youth Convention. We never met. {God: wink.}

7. We grew up with a small Church of God camp in Michigan, Warner Camp, being a heavily-frequented spot by our families and youth groups. However, we never seemed to be at the camp at the same time, except the one summer between our sophomore and junior years of high school, when Matt was the lifeguard and I was a counselor-in-training. We never met. {God: wink.}

8. Next, we both went to Anderson University, a small and private liberal arts college {and THE college of the Church of God}. We both majored in history, which is a very small major at the school. We have determined that we only ever had one history class together, which is quite extraordinary considering the circumstances. Though we probably would have recognized each other's faces from seeing each other on campus, we never met. {God: wink.}

9. After our freshman year at Anderson, I studied in France for six weeks during the summer in a little town right along the English Channel in Normandy. Simultaneously, Matt took a two-week cultural trip to England through Anderson. During that time, we were both in Europe, really just across the English Channel from one another. {God: wink.}

10. Throughout the remainder of our years at Anderson University, we would have had many, many opportunities to cross paths. We ran in different circles of friends, but we also had lots and lots of mutual friends. There were a couple of events we can recall when we really did cross paths, but still didn't know one another. {Example: Matt was one of a group of five or six guys during our freshman year that came to tee-pee the house of one of the girls in my Bible study group when the ten of us were having a sleep-over at her parents' house in Anderson. We caught them in the act and chased them off.} Still, we never actually met. {God: wink.}

11. Finally, December 2005 arrived. This was God's timing. I had already graduated from Anderson and Matt was finishing his last year, since he had to take one year off of school to do his military intelligence training. I was living in St. Joseph. My best friend since junior high, Laura, was engaged to Chris Gerber. Chris and Matt were close friends and were living together in a house off-campus with three other guys. I came to Anderson to visit Laura and a group of six of us went out to Indianapolis for the day, myself and Matt included. That was the day we met, and by New Year's Day, Matt and I had become a "couple." {God: WINK.}

In discussing all the opportunities we potentially had to meet one another throughout our lives, we both believe that, due to the circumstances at the different stages in our lives, we would not have ever "fallen" for one another and ultimately ended up together. Timing really was everything for us, and it was so clear to both of us when we met just how much God had His hand on this special timing.

My husband, my love, is by far the biggest, and best, God-wink our God has ever given me.