There are times when fate seems to be aligning all the planets and bringing brilliance our way – Serendipity!
“The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.”
But is it our 0wn effort, and striving that leads to these discoveries and events even though they may seem to be accidental?
A few days ago someone ask me how my husband and I met.
We met after a conference we had both been at in Sydney, New South Wales, but never crossed paths at. He was to be the driver of a team of youth to drive around Country Victoria (Australia) to work on projects to help other youth and visit people in country areas. I was looking for him on my arrival there.
The first words I ever said to him were ‘So you’re the one,’ meaning of course the driver of the upcoming trip, but he turned out to literally be ‘the one.’
I was on the trip after saving money for months to go to the conference and also being sponsored for the project afterwards by a family.
He was on that trip, not really expecting to find the one, but he had asked a friend on Baha’i pilgrimage to pray he would find a wife. She prayed all nine days of our trip, and by the end of it I think we both knew perhaps we had found ‘the one.’
Serendipity?
Another story of serendipity was in the recent visit of Alesa Lajana to my area. She discovered that I was friends with some of the people she was staying with and also a couple of people she was learning weaving from.
We were all woven together – into the fabric of her life. I knew her because my sons had gone to a guitar workshop she held in Yungaburra (where she also performed). It was so cool to see her again.
The connection – we both like creative things, and she is on a quest for hidden histories but also likes learning how to do weaving.
Another serendipitous happening is that my husband and I once had no ties to the Cassowary Coast in terms of relatives, but then our niece married a local boy and so suddenly we did.
Not only that her in-laws are good friends with one of my closest friends here. Her mother in law is a photographer who some other friends had told me to connect with as we both love photography.
We didn’t expect this to happen but people travel and new family connections are made, everyday.
Do you have stories of serendipity from your life?
Gumboootspearlz 
Yes, especially since moving to Queensland where essentially we knew few people. In spite of this so many serendipitous connections were made between new friends. An example of this was when my husband and I were both teachers. At my school an exchange teacher had arrived from Canada and at my husband’s school there was a new exchange teacher from the UK. The Canadian teacher’s wife turned up at my son’s playgroup with her three boys and the whole Canadian family turned up at a BBQ held by the UK teacher and his family. We all became firm friends. Then, at my son’s 4th birthday party, I introduced the Canadian’s to another couple who taught with my husband at his school. They were planning to do a teaching exchange in Canada the following year and I thought they could ask questions etc. After a short exchange it turned out that the school this couple had been posted to in Canada was the very same school that our Canadian friends taught at. Now Canada’s a big place… and still this seems a small world.
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Thanks so much for sharing that beautiful story Angela. Another story of mine is meeting an anthropologist studying my mum’s village, he had photographs of my grandfather and aunties! that is a whole post in itself.
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June, I LOVE the story of how you met your husband!! What a great blessing!
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The most significant serendipitous encounter in my life surrounded meeting my future husband and our marriage. We first met in Tasmania, but we both originally came from Melbourne. It turned out that my husband’s family came from the same farming settlement in the Western District of Victoria as my mother’s family came from. This little community has since disappeared. But the connection goes further than that. We found out that my husband’s grandfather had been courting my grandmother’s twin sister. He asked her father’s permission to marry her and he said no. My husband’s grandfather then moved away and the families lost contact until my husband and I met.
The connections don’t stop there. My husband’s father grew up in the same street where my grandmother later came to live when she moved from northern Victoria to Melbourne. My father (born in England) and my husband’s father attended the same Melbourne school for a short time.
An unconnected serendipitous encounter was at my swimming club in Sydney a few years ago. I found out that another member of the club much older than me was born in the same Melbourne hospital as me (which has not been a maternity hospital for years) and we both attended the same school in Melbourne, albeit years apart.
Like many people I have had a lifetime of serendipitous encounters the most recent concerning this blog post. I was discussing serendipity and sharing an example of this in my life with my daughter last night – presumably when you were in the midst of writing this post June!
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It was indeed 😉 thanks for leaving a comment.
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Fabulous, I love serendipity! Thankyou for the phonecall.
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Oh, June, I really enjoyed reading this–especially the serendipitous meeting of you and your husband. “You’re the one.” How cool! I’ve had many of these instances and always feel the presence of grace in the light of synchronicity.
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I had to write that story down for my dear children, lovely to hear from you.
My Dad just sent me the story of he and Mum met, loved it.
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Reblogged this on Unitys Garden.
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