“Nothing is coincidence.  Every soul you meet is written in your destiny to teach you, heal you, or love you,” Daniel Chidiac.  This is an old concept.  Humans tend to look for reasoning behind everything so we can make sense of our place in the universe and how and why things happen.  It’s unsettling to think that everything happens randomly, especially when we consider the nature of human events throughout history.  Order makes it easier to get it, we understand cause and effect.  The human mind simultaneously struggles with the idea that some of the awful things that happen in this world may have a reason—what would be worse in the worst case scenario?  The fact that there might be a reason behind that moment or that there WASN’T a reason? 

I can’t speak to all the reasons for things happening in my life but I can say that I have learned that more often than not, things are most definitely not coincidence. My path has crossed with certain people at specific times in ways that I can’t attribute to anything other than some sort of divine reason/manifestation.  Even the timing of specific themes in my life.  Nearly a decade ago when I sought to recapture my strength/faith, I attended church and the sermon on that very day was about the strength of women and recapturing their power.  I met my husband through a series of what can only be described as the universe pushing us together.  Even if I think of the losses in my life, and when I’m hard pressed to look at the big picture surrounding those losses, there seems to be a cadence to it suggesting a reason. 

Knowing there’s a reason doesn’t always make things easier, it doesn’t always settle the situation, but it can provide perspective and perhaps some guidance.  When those we love hurt us, they are teaching us how not to be.  When those we love leave us, there is a piece of them that remains, a piece that connects us to them and teaches us to love while we are here, to not wait.  And for those that come into our lives for a season that seems harder than others, they are teaching us a strength that we can only find on our own, they are showing us the way to ourselves. Take heart and understand that even if we don’t understand, the people in our lives are there for a reason.  They are there to support and guide us or to help us stand on our own.  So look at them with gratitude and allow them to be who they are while you continue to be who you are.  Stay the course.