God Works in Mysterious Ways

Yesterday morning I met with Becky Povich, a writing friend, critique group pal, and blogger buddy. Becky is bubbly and fun and always upbeat. She also is the new president of Saturday Writers. I'm stepping down from the board of SW, and I had some contest entries and other paperwork to turn over to her--plus, we wanted to get together and chat.

Originally I planned to turn over the paperwork to Becky Tuesday morning at critique group, but Becky couldn't make it to critique group. Then Becky was going to stop by my house Tuesday night, but because I had some running around with the grandkids, we had to reschedule until Wednesday.

Third time's the charm. I suggested we meet Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. at the Starbucks across from the post office in St. Peters because it's close to both of our homes. Becky agreed, so Starbucks is where we met.

Becky was excited about her true story that was recently published in Thin Threads, Life Changing Moments. Her story is about a woman named Tara's experience with Habitat for Humanity, and Becky brought along a copy to show me. Becky is donating $5 to Habitat for Humanity for each copy she sells.

As we settled in with our hot drinks, a young woman wearing a pea coat and a stylish hat and sitting with a friend at a table nearby said, "Becky?"

After Becky turned to look, the young woman rose from her seat. Becky squealed, "Oh, my God. I don't believe it." She jumped up and gave the woman a big hug.

Would you be surprised if I told you the young woman was Tara, the woman in Becky's story, who was on her way to Barnes and Noble to buy a book for her daughter, but who stopped at Starbucks to meet a friend for coffee? Becky hadn't seen Tara in weeks, but was planning to call that very afternoon. Because Becky had a copy of her book to show me, she was able to give a signed copy to Tara, much to her delight.

The rest of what went on yesterday morning isn't as interesting as the strange coincidence of Becky running into Tara, who lives about twenty miles from St. Peters, being in that Starbucks on that day at that time when Becky and I were meeting to talk, after rescheduling our meeting for a third time.

Coincidence? I don't think so. God truly does work in mysterious ways.