Weds Nov 22, 2005; 1:41PST; Washington D.C. Area

Wow. Such a random night. MN and I made it into D.C. JC gave us a night tour of the area. I had been there before when I was 13 years old, so it had been a while since I'd gone back. Prior to our tour of the area, we decided to get food at a Vietnamese restaurant. At this restaurant I randomly ran into another friend, also "MN". We'll call her MN2. :-) MN2 was my cousin's friend in New Orleans. Last year (Jan) we went to the Sugar Bowl to watch the Oklahoma vs. LSU game. MN2 and some of her friends showed us around and was a very gracious host.

Later that year Katrina hit and MN2 and her family were affected by the storm. They lost everything in that situation, so it was SO good to see her. I saw email updates from her on occasion, but it was REALLY good to see her. I can't emphasize that enough.

She and her family are still living in a church somewhere in Baton Rouge, but they are all doing well. She happened to be in the D.C. area having dinner with her friend who had just been relocated by her company from New Orleans to Washington D.C. I guess there's still so much going on with rebuilding lives and homes for everyone out there. I haven't heard much about it in the news, so running into them and hearing about their current situation was an eye-opener for me.

How random is it for me, to have just flown in earlier that day all the way from SF to D.C. and end up in a strip mall in this one particular restaurant and run into a friend who had flown in from New Orleans a few days prior??

Divine circumstances, no doubt. The older I get, the more I believe that nothing is a coincidence. The fact that I am blogging and you - whoever you are - happen to come across this blog and are reading this is not just circumstancial. There's an impression that's to be made here, and the significance of the impact is far beyond what our minds can comprehend. If we understood it, I don't think we could handle it.

Anyway, I left that night by giving her a big hug and a quick prayer to the man upstairs, acknowledging that His ways are bigger than my ways, and that this chance encounter was a sign. A reflection that all is well in my life and that I was certainly where I was supposed to be in His grand plan. As ambiguous and as elusive as my security in life may be on some things, I have no doubt that this is part of life and seeking "truth" and living by "faith" is what it's all about.