"Coincidence? I think not!"

       Over and over again, God has done things in my life to remind me that NOTHING is coincidental.  Here's and example that culminated this week:
       I am often sick.  Not sickly; but I used to get strep every year and often will have a continual cold or sinus problem during the winter.  That means that I generally use a lot of tissues in the winter.  [Winter = Colds = Runny Nose = Tissues.]  My family is somewhat old-fashioned and traditional, so I didn't realize that there was a simpler way to blow my nose in school - one that didn't entail leaving my desk to pull a tissue out of the tissue box on my teacher's desk.  It's called "MINI TISSUE PACKS!!!"  This summer while I was school shopping these mini tissue packs were on sale and I really stocked up on them.  I felt very proud, and prepared!  .... And then... like the blonde that I am, I brought a large tissue BOX to school and placed it on my shelf - completely forgetting about all the mini tissue packs that I had been storing in my closet since summer.  I was very aggravated at myself: "Why buy all those tissue packs if you're just going to bring a tissue BOX to school?!??"  Good question.  Answer:  there isn't always TP where I'm going in Kenya!  I got an email this week, among other things, advising me to stock up on tissue packs as an improvisation for TP.  That was one of those "Ooohhh, I get it!" moments.  Thanks God!  And now I know why he made me blonde.  There really was a purpose behind that seemingly senseless thing that He allowed me to do.  :)
  
          But I must still, in my heart of hearts, doubt that nothing is coincidental - that when we think we've made a mistake (not a sin), God is most likely behind that somehow.  At Christmas time, I ordered The Purpose Driven Life for one of my friends and then felt like God didn't really want me to give it to her after all.  So again I was "giving myself the business" for being "hasty" and wondering what in the world I was supposed to do with the book that I had ordered.  I already own a copy.  The book has finally come, several weeks after Christmas, and God may have given me an idea of who to give it to.  I suppose that we will see eventually who it's for.  The person He may have suggested isn't someone that I would have thought of in my top 15 people to give the book to but would probably be a greater blessing to her than any of the people I was thinking of.

     It's just cool how God works like that and I encourage you to look for things, that may seem like coincidences, but are really evidence of God, at work in out lives, and in the world around us.