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Divine Serendipity
Last week I mentioned Divine
Serendipity and said I would talk about it in
another newsletter. This is that newsletter.
The word serendipity
was coined by Horace Walpole, a writer, politician, and the
4th Earl of Orford, in a letter he wrote to his friend
Horace Mann on January 28, 1754. It came from an ancient
Persian fairy tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip."
On their travels the princes were always accidentally
discovering something that when combined with something
else, also accidentally discovered, turned out to their
benefit—though the benefit might not be seen or received for
some time.
My definition of Divine
Serendipity, therefore, is when God brings
people, places, events, or things into your life that are
later—even many years later—combined with other people,
places, events, or things to benefit you or someone else.
Here are examples of some from my life. In 1960 my family and I were living in
Caribou, Maine, which is 150 miles from anywhere. One day in
a drug store I spotted a magazine titled
Writer's Digest,
published in Cincinnati, Ohio
(remember that magazine and city). Bought it, took it home,
read it, and decided I would like to be a writer of some
kind. There was an ad in the magazine for
Writer's Digest Correspondence
School for Writers (remember that school). So I
signed up for the course.
Finished only half of it, but on the basis of half a
course got a job as a Technical Writer with GE in
Burlington, Vermont—my home town. Three years later I was
unemployed, had an injured back, and we were living with my
wife's parents in Dartmouth, New Hampshire. While there I
read an article about writing greeting cards (guess in what
magazine) and decided I could write the funny one-liners,
then called Studio Cards. Sold my first one a couple of
months later to Barker Greeting Card
Company—guess in what city.
Finally got a job as a Technical Writer for the Philco
Corporation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Continued free
lancing greeting cards and my sales gradually increased.
Then heard that Barker Greeting Card
Company in
Cincinnati, Ohio was looking
for an editor. Wrote to them, they flew me out and hired
me—that was 1966. Moved my family there in April.
In August 1968 I wrote a book titled The Greeting Card
Writer's Handbook and wrote to the editor of
Writer's Digest Magazine
to see if she knew of a publishing house that might publish
it. Got a letter back from Dick Rosenthal, the publisher of
the magazine, saying they would like to, which they
did.
A few months later Rosenthal wrote to me again and asked
if I would be interested in being Director of guess what
school for writers—you guessed it,
Writer's Digest Correspondence School for Writers.
I said I would, took a bunch of tests, and was Director for
eight years.
What does all this have to do
with God and Divine Serendipity? Two final
guesses. Guess where I was working when the Holy Spirit
began to bring people and things into my life that would
lead me to Christ—you guessed it. And guess where I
was working when in less than 20 minutes Jesus healed me of
my injured back, which I had suffered with for nearly ten
years—you guessed it again.
Going back to Caribou, Maine,
and later, do you think it was blind coincidences that I
took a writing course from Writer's
Digest Correspondence School for Writers in Cincinnati,
Ohio, that I sold my first greeting card to a card
company in Cincinnati, Ohio—and
later became editor of that same company and moved to
Cincinnati, and that Writer's Digest
Magazine published my book on greeting cards, and
then hired me as Director of the writing school whose course
I took in Caribou but only half finished?
Consider this. It was at the school in Cincinnati that
the Holy Spirit began to move people and things into my life
that led me to Christ, and it was on a walk from my office
on 12th Street to 5th Street that Christ healed me of 10
years of back pain. Further, it was in a house we bought in
the Cincinnati area that my wife, Beverlee, was healed of
crippling rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Neither of us yet
had these physical problems when we lived in Caribou, Maine.
But both of us are absolutely
certain that through a series of serendipitous events
that started there, God brought us to Cincinnati, Ohio,
to save us, heal us, and use us. Child of God,
there are no coincidences in the kingdom of God, there are
only God-incidences!
Divine Serendipity—God
bringing people, places, things, and events into your life
that He will at some time combine with other (often
seemingly unrelated) people, places, things, and events that
will benefit you or someone else.
"Be not forgetful
to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained
angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2). |
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