This summer I have spent some time talking with my dad about his life story. And he sure has a story to tell. After his father was taken by the Communist party in 1941, months before my father was born, his family fled the Ukraine for Germany, and eventually immigrated to the United States, sailing past the Statue of Liberty on his tenth birthday. He has truly lived the American Dream. I would love to help him compile his memories into a book. Unfortunately, some of the memories have become a little fuzzy. 

After talking with him one evening, I left wishing we had more clarity on the details of his early life. What really happened??

The next morning as I grabbed my phone from the charger beside my bed, I was reminded of the need to clean out the drawer in my bedside table, something I had been putting off for quite some time. Ugh, might as well get it over with, I thought, and started pulling out the junk that had accumulated over the years – instruction manuals and notes and used-up chapstick and other random odds and ends. At the bottom of the drawer, I pulled out a set of papers that had been folded in half. Taking a closer look, I blinked in amazement. It was my father’s mother’s typed-out story of HER life, including many details about my father’s early years. My father had given it to me years ago, so long ago that both of us had forgotten it even existed. 

A coincidence that I decided to clean out that drawer on that day, and the story just so happened to be there?

Some people call them “God Winks.” Those moments that are just too outrageous to be coincidence, and simply have to be divine intervention. My husband argues that there is really no such thing as a God Wink, because everything that happens to us is divinely orchestrated. Romans 8:28 tells us that, “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” When things go wrong, it sure doesn’t feel like God is working. But if evil had not collided in southern Russia eighty some years ago, would I be here today? Two power-hungry dictators fighting for land and control helped set off a chain of events that led to my dad living in Kansas and meeting my mother. 

I easily forget to acknowledge or recognize how God is moving in my life. Thankfully, sometimes He opens my eyes to remind me that He is here, that He cares about me, and that He is involved in every detail. Truly extraordinary.