A week ago, I was looking forward to spending the afternoon with two of my oldest friends, Janice and Joyce, plus a writing group. After eating a breakfast of an English muffin, orange juice and coffee, my stomach was upset. I didn’t understand why–I’d had nothing unusual but I would remain close to the bathroom. I called Joyce to say that I would not be attending our planned meeting. Because she carried her cell phone, I reached her at a rehab facility where she was convalescing after being hospitalized. In notifying people, she had missed me–there would be no meeting. I realized, I should have called to verify the day before setting out on a fifty-mile drive. I would have been irate if I’d reached her home, knocked on the door and nobody was there.
I met the sisters when we were grade-schoolers attending country, one-roomers. Janice and I took weekly accordion lessons from Dallas, a dark-haired, sixteen-year-old fellow who worked at Voight Music Center in Beloit, Wisconsin. Girls and boys of that era flocked to studios with hopes of emulating Dick Contino, an eighteen-year-old, California squeeze-box player who became famous after winning a nationwide talent contest that was broadcast to millions of people listening to their radios.
While our farmer fathers sat waiting for their budding musicians, they chatted and formed a friendship that soon included their families. I envied Janice having a sister just one grade ahead of her. They traded clothes, which I thought was neat. The girls and I were never classmates but we attended similar, small high school in different towns. We confided secrets. Our conversations included problems maturing from tomboys to ’50s young ladies, tales of current boyfriends and dreams for our futures.
Through the years, our comradery has ebbed and flowed as our lives have taken us in different directions. Today, we are older women who continue to love writing. We live about fifty miles apart so get-togethers are few and far between although each of us still drives her own car.
Was my stomach upset just a coincidence or was God working in my life? Many times, I’ve wondered the same thing but I’ll never know the answer. For years, I have stood in church and recited the Apostles’ Creed, which begins, “I believe in God…” but I have trouble accepting that He would be involved in my day-to-day activities with such big things vying for His concern.
Do you ever wonder if happenings are just a coincidence?