It started with a puppy head. Don't worry -- it was still attached to the rest of the puppy. I remember somewhere in alpha dreamland, a puppy head being thrust through my cracked-open bedroom door and Emily saying, "Don't worry -- it's not staying." Famous last words.
The next morning, I got up, met the puppy more formally, and heard the whole story about how Emily confiscated him from a guy she knows who, after the puppy romance of a mere month had worn off, was going to dump the poor little guy in the woods. Or his mother was going to shoot it (I'm assured that she really would do it despite my deep desire to think that no such cruel people exist). So I now commend Emily for her actions.
I put cute little-puppy-guy's photo on Facebook as a wild stab in the dark of a first attempt. Emily tried to put an ad on Craigslist but it wouldn't load. Ugh.
It took exactly 11 minutes for my friend and co-worker, Christy, to offer to take the puppy. That was miraculously FAST!
I was a little worried. He's rottweiler and pit bull (even though the best dog I ever had was a pit bull, I know people have their fears and prejudices) and ALL mischievious puppy -- complete with all the trappings of rampant teething, inevitable "gift" leaving, clumsy feet that are WAY too big for him, and tendency to get bored and come up with something you'd never have thought of. In the space of half an hour he wrestled the curtains, attached himself to the dust mop so as to make cleaning the floor a mere dream, and was utterly unsuccessful at convincing the cats to be his playmates. He did finally find friends: a plastic Easter egg, an ice cube, and a soda can.
Despite my worries, Christy now reports that he is the "best and cutest pup ever". Whew!
He couldn't have gone to a better home. Christy is smart and responsible, has the hugest heart for animals, and lives on her own little 8-acre horse farm with dogs and cats and, of course... horses.
I was curious about what Christy would name this puppy who had the previous and very unfortunate name of "Axel". Emily and I dubbed him "Chomper" for Facebook purposes but we knew he had yet to find his true name.
The following day, Christy texted me that she had settled on a name: "Roscoe". She said, "I just kept calling him 'Roscoe'. I don't know why."
"Maybe because that's his name!" I replied.
I texted Emily that his new name was Roscoe. She texted me right back saying, "I almost named him the exact same thing!" How amazingly uncanny! Of all the possible names... Guess that really WAS his name!
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Next came my step-son's 11th birthday. Noah was born on 7/14 at 7:14 and weighed, yes, 7lbs 14oz. I'm not sure about the formal numberological implications of that but I do know it's something special. Mark had some mathematician friend figure up that the odds of such a thing are one in 96 million (or something mind-stretching like that). At the very least, Noah is special and his run on the number 7/14 serves to remind us of that if nothing else.
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| Noah Christian Coppock |
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The next incidence of coincidence came as I drove diagonally across the outer regions of the grocery store parking lot. I was talking with Mark on my cell phone and we were just saying that we haven't been to church in forever and we need to start going again when I had to jam on the breaks to keep from hitting another car. The driver of that car, of course, was the pastor of that church that we haven't been to in forever! Again, uncanny! {Check out http://www.vintagefellowship.org/ if you have even the slightest interest in a hip young church where is ok to ask questions and not have all the answers.}
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| Robb Ryerse, Vintage Fellowship |
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| Ice |
A couple of weeks ago, I was trying to figure out how I'd EVER break my two-a-day diet Dr. Pepper habit. I lived for them. It turns out that, when I did quit the diet DP and was searching for a replacement, that ice came into play in a very important way. Now I am almost two weeks diet DP free and, instead, every day at work I have a couple of glasses of ice water with that wonderful ice from the church kitchen.
Seems like God was trying to give the the answer via the pastor!
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Mark was telling me a story he'd heard about a man who's father was struck and killed by lightning. And then, 45 years later, the son was struck and killed by lightning TOO!
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I'm hoping that coincidences are enough and that God doesn't have to strike me with a bolt of lightning to get my attention! Coincidences DO tend to get my attention better than most things. If I was God and had to make an impression without being just plain obvious, I'd be a little heavy-handed with the coincidences too.
You can always wonder if you're just reading something into nothing. You can always explain it away somehow. But why? As humans, we tend to seek meaning. At least, I know I do. And I'll take meaning and the grace that accompanies it in any way I can get it. At the very least, coincidences encourage me to take a closer look at something that I might easily have glossed over. They can trigger decisions. They can bring on a smile. They can highlight what's really important. Or not. But I prefer to take them at full intensity. To me, they have God's fingerprints all over them.
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I LOVE coincidences! When I was in the 9th grade my camp counselor gave me the book The Celestine Prophecy and it is all about coincidences. After I ready hat book I started to notice a TON. The biggest coincidences in my life have always been about music. So that's how I've always know that music would play a huge part in my life- and it also plays a huge part in my husbands life, how we met and our wedding. YAY Coincidences!
ReplyDeletethis cracked me up...I asked Robb if he remembered almost getting hit by you, but he said no. But he said he does see you in parking lots all the time. He said it's a little weird how often he sees you in parking lots. : )
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