Proof

A friend of mine once told me everything we endure as humans is either God sent or God used. I believe her. I have proof.

One night two summers ago, I sat in the garage at my house talking to a different friend about how God used the experiences with the deaths of my paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather to teach me something about myself. (I blogged about the experience here.) The friend told me I was really lucky to have such insight on how quickly God worked in my life even though it took 10 years.

"Many people wait a lifetime for hindsight to become so clear . . . for the bad things that happen to us to have a purpose," he said.

Little did he know, God was about to work that miracle on him, too.

Months earlier, he had been in a serious car crash that broke his back. After a night of partying, he lost control at a high speed on a patch of ice on a desolate stretch of highway. His car rolled, but luckily, his amp -- a very heavy projectile at that point -- stayed in the back seat. He could have been killed.

Instead, he spent time in the hospital recovering, and when he finished, his friendship with my husband and I solidified through music. The night I told him about my grandparents, he confronted me about my husband's drinking. Because of the accident he endured, he brought up his concerns about my husband's safety when he drank and drove. Essentially, he removed the blinders from my eyes and allowed me to see my husband's problem. Before that, I'd been an enabler.

Without that conversation, I wouldn't have intervened with my husband's drinking. Without the accident our friend endured, he wouldn't have brought it up.

When I pointed this fact out to him several months later, he looked at me like I'd socked him in the stomach. Not steady in his own faith walk yet, I'm not sure he believed the providence of what occurred or whether he just chocked it up to coincidence.

To me, however, it was proof .