Random meetings or a coincidence of fate?

Have you met someone you know in an unexpected place? For example, you go to the mountains and see a friend you don't normally see, even though they live in the same town.

For me, even these reunions are not completely random. I trust in God's guidance on our life's journey. It doesn't mean that He directs us like some puppet, as some might imagine. On the contrary, we have our own free will and it is up to us how we handle our journey. However, God often gives us signals in the form of situations and people, etc. that we encounter.

 

Do you see certain encounters as "fateful"? I have had several of these in my childhood. When I was little, I loved listening to my dad play guitar and sing to us. Then at Boy Scout camp, when I got older, I was captivated by the guitar songs played by our leader.

I longed to learn the guitar. I got it and found out it wasn't that easy. You have to concentrate on several things at once, which has always been a bit of a problem for me, I admit. I'm not a "typical woman" I guess...

 

I learned to play the guitar a bit as an adult - I started again, this time not as a self-taught player. Meeting my future teacher at an event called Musicianship helped.

For a long time I dreamed of a serious relationship, so I didn't try dating "just because". I was waiting for "the one". It wasn't until I realized that I should go against my destiny a little. But I wasn't exactly in a social circle where I could meet someone like that.

 

I was working as an occupational therapist and meeting friends, but in a mostly female group.

I remember it was my grandmother who first mentioned to me whether I wanted to try some dating. Just the person I would probably least expect it from, given her age, etc. It was a major boost for me. I met more men as I went along. Some of them more than once. But with none of them did I feel like it was the right fit. Until I arranged to meet him.

 

At that time, I was corresponding with two men. However, I decided to meet him. He lived in Trebic and I lived in Prague. But he just had a part-time job near Prague. So we could meet in Prague.

I remember when he first came to me, from the very first moment it was different from the others. He brought me a rose - origami (it was very nice and original). We walked around and had a snack in a pub nearby. From then on we followed each other from Trebic to Prague. And finally found a place to live together and confirmed our relationship in marriage and started a family. It is no coincidence that we found each other and met. At least I don't see it that way. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being together.

A beautiful example of a not/random encounter is when a person comes into our lives who looks a lot like someone we know. It may even help us "heal the relationship" with our original acquaintance, because communication with someone else (like them) may be easier for us.

Other times, a person will unknowingly bring to our attention a topic that we have unresolved within ourselves. For example, personal boundaries. I only started noticing them when someone crossed them.

 

A quote from Albert Einstein: "Chance is God's way of intervening anonymously." It also sums up my attitude towards "chance" nicely.

 

I tried to do a little research on the subject...

The questions were:

In your opinion, does chance exist?
Do you believe in God?
Do you believe in something beyond us?
Are there encounters in your life that have influenced you?

(A total of 19 respondents answered. 15 women and 4 men. The majority of respondents were between the ages of 31-40. Mostly university graduates with a master's degree or engineering degree).

 

I wondered if belief in God has an effect on our attitude toward "chance". I set hypotheses:

1. People who believe in God usually do not believe in chance.
2. People who believe in something beyond us and at the same time do not believe in God are more likely to believe in chance.

From the sample of responses, neither the first nor the second hypothesis could be confirmed. However, no reliable conclusions can be drawn from this small sample. However, there does not seem to be a direct relationship between our beliefs and our view of the existence of chance.

 

According to 11 of the respondents, there is a chance, while the other 8 do not believe in chance. 12 respondents believe in God. 8 respondents believe in God and chance at the same time. Most of the respondents work in health care, others work in education, other fields, business, catering and hotel, agriculture, government, information technology, industry, technical fields, and social services. Everyone in the health care industry believes in something above and so do the vast majority of people in other industries. Health professionals differ in their attitude towards the existence of chance: out of 7, 4 believe in chance, and 4 believe in God, but it is not always true that they believe in the existence of God and chance at the same time.

 

To the fourth question, one of them answered: "...every day I meet new people in my business, I listen a lot to the stories of people around me, individually they inspire me or lead me to think and this leads me to different decisions, ambitions and I like to contribute to the goal of others...better lives and health".

Another part of the answer to the question about the encounter: "A close person who was a friend at a time when no one else was. A man who filled the spot after a lost relationship. People who knew me better than I knew myself and yet did not reject me. College teachers, are open to discussing even things that are "out of the question." 

Another woman describes her attitude towards chance: "Some of our actions and what happens to us are predetermined by our genetics and what we take from our childhood, what patterns of behavior we imprint on ourselves and then repeat over and over again...(it may look like chance, but we actually attract these things by our behavior, our actions). And this is then a big topic of self-development for me personally - to distinguish which things I can still influence, the bad patterns caught mainly in childhood to change and what can no longer be changed..."

Others believe that "everything is good for something, I just don't know what for at the moment. Something will hold me back along the way, I will forget something, I will break something...then I will find out that it was actually good. Everything builds on something else, it doesn't always pay to interfere with the course of events. "

Another writes of the encounter, "Everyone has a certain spark in them, and we can give that to each other, inspire each other. I like meeting people and their life stories, but the ones that appealed to me the most were the ones that were deeper, spiritual, related to some nobility, and awareness. It gives me joy and hope".

A beautiful example of a fateful (or accidental?) meeting: 'In a foreign country where she knew no one, she heard a voice in Czech, she and the lady exchanged phone numbers. Two years have passed since then and they have not been in touch. In a crisis situation, when no one she knew was answering the phone, she wrote to the woman and she got help."

She recognized her future best friend as "a very different woman than she was," but they shared a similar fate.

 

Sometimes we meet someone for the first time and understand each other as if we've known each other forever. But is it a coincidence?

A very nice example is given by a woman who, in her own words, "approached another woman they knew from a previous life, she was shocked, but their meeting was very powerful and they both knew exactly what to expect from each other."

 

I believe that everything that happens to us in life has a purpose and comes at the right time.

 

I don't see the fact that you are reading this article as a coincidence either. :)