Coincidence, Destiny, Dumb Luck, Fate or a Spiritual Nudging?

What are the odds that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson would die on July 4, 1826? It coincidentally happened to fall on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. To add to it, James Monroe died 5 years later on the same date.

What are the chances that three of my Meredith College friends and I would end up living in Statesville for various unrelated reasons? They had lived mere doors down from me on the same hall all four years. I call that a wonderful "lucky coincidence" or just plain meant to be.

Let's complicate the coincidence pot just a little more with another interesting example. I know two brothers who got married in the same year. They each divorced a few years later, in the same year. One of the ex-wives remarried a man from North Carolina. The other ex-wife moved to Chicago where she worked as a flight attendant. She just happened to meet the brother of the man that her ex- sister-in-law in a chance encounter in Chicago. He lived in Tennessee. They married. Are you following? The two ex-sisters '"in- law became sister's-in-law once again. Coincidence, destiny, dumb luck or fate?

Odds can certainly be defied, and coincidences are bound to happen. The avenue of explanation would be in the form of a spiritual nudging and divine intervention. My mother was involved in a coincidental nudging event that I suspect was more in line with a spiritual prodding. One, cold, rainy day while driving through her town, she passed a young, drenched girl walking in the opposite direction. Responding to an unexplained, strong urge, she found herself turning her car around. She pulled up beside the girl and asked her whether or not she needed a ride. She told her that she was walking to her job some six miles away. My mother offered to take her there. She eagerly jumped in her car. My mother asked her if she went to the high school. She replied, no, and explained that she had dropped out in the 11th grade and had left her home in Florida.

My mother asked her if she would be interested in getting her G.E.D. at the local community college. The girl excitedly said that she would, but that she did not have transportation. Coincidentally, my cousin was coming from Raleigh to stay with my mother the very next day to get her G.E.D. from the same college. You guessed it: My cousin and my mother's new protégé drove off together, on a mission, each day to college. Two weeks later, after cram sessions at my mother's house, they both received their diplomas with certificates for high honors, I might add. No one has seen or heard from the mystery girl since, but wherever she is, I suspect she's moved forward with her life with a new level of much needed self-esteem'"a product of someone who definitely received an unexplained assist from someone responding to a "coincidental divine nudge."