Recently, my husband got home from work a few hours earlier than normal and asked me if I wanted to take off to do some of my own stuff.
He didn’t have to ask me twice.
I packed up my workout bag and my laptop and headed out the door. My plan was to go swimming and then get some work done. I got to the Y, changed into my swimsuit, and grabbed my goggles. Wait. Where were my goggles? Not there.
I threw my clothes back on and left the Y. Once I was sitting in my car, I called my husband.
Why is this happening to me? I wailed.
Now, I’m not normally a drama queen, but I’ve been doing this kind of stuff all the time lately: forget my goggles, forget my workout bag. Last week I drove all the way to the library to get some writing done, only to find that I had left my laptop at home. Arrgh!
When I said to my husband: Why is this happening to me? I immediately had another thought: This is happening FOR me.
But how could that be? I thought about it as I asked my husband if he’d seen my goggles. When he told me the last time he’d seen them, our son had been playing with him, I knew going back home wasn’t necessarily the right answer. Those goggles could be anywhere, including the trash.
Still wondering how this could have happened for me, I went to a sports store and bought two pairs of goggles. While I was there, I remembered that I’d been looking for rollerblade safety equipment for months. My sister and I had been planning to try speed skating but I hadn’t bought any safety equipment as I couldn’t find any in my size. This store had the XXS (okay, children’s) size I needed.
So, maybe I forgot my goggles (or lost them, whatever) because it was time to further my dream of trying speed skating. That could be it.
I went back to the Y, went swimming, then hit the library and got some work done. Nothing happened TO me. It all happened FOR me.
While I used a trivial example here, I feel the same way about bigger things that happen in my life. I may have mentioned (I’m sure I did!) that I was once engaged and my fiancé broke up with me over the phone. At the time, that felt like it happened TO me. Now I know it happened FOR me. And whatever came next for my ex-fiancé, I’m sure it happened FOR him, too.
What happened TO you? Could it have happened FOR you?
What I thought was the darkest day of my life was the afternoon I came home early and walked in on my husband with my friend. I started to cramp and bleed after they left, which was terrifying because I was 5 months pregnant.
That was 34 years ago. Being the single mother of a wonderful daughter did nothing to ruin me and everything to define and build me. 27 years ago today I married a wonderful man who has been a supportive, loving, genuine and loyal husband to me and father to our daughter (he adopted her), and now beloved grandpa to our grandchildren. At the time all those years ago I felt my first husband had done something horrible TO me, but it turned out to be the greatest gift FOR me and my daughter. He didn’t do it for us but for himself, yet the end result was a redemption and shining star for me to learn and grow and write…and live a full strong life as a mother…and now a grandmother. Life is full of divine rewritings of pages in our lives. When something horrible–or even just inconvenient or irritating–happens to us, we need to stop, take a deep breath and be open to the possibility that something protective or sustaining or encouraging has happened for us. Thank you for this blog’s reminder.
Hi marylinwarner,
Thanks so much for your sharing part of your story with us. I agree, we can see anything that happens as a positive or a negative. “It’s all good” is a cliche, but the older I get the more truth I see in that cliche. While I can’t always see how some seemingly awful event serves me, I know from experience that it does.
Warmly,
Diane
Hi marylinwarner,
Thanks for sharing part of your story with me. It’s such a powerful reminder that all that happens is FOR us. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
Warmly,
Diane