Lucky, I think not!!

Luck. You hear it all the time. "Oh you got lucky!" I was told this when I first got my current job. Many had applied including an older, yet sorer lady. She had applied for my job and didnt get what she wanted. I GOT what she wanted! Was I lucky?

Jeff Gordon won the Phoenix race this past weekend. Granted, he had a great car and the skill, but it was his last minute "lucky" pit stop right as the caution waved to put him in position to take the checkered flag. Lucky?

I was due to turn in a book report on a Friday in my sophomore year in high school. Straight A student, football player, respectful and courteous kid to all my teachers.....I was a good kid. Turns out this time around I was ill preped. Not half way through my assigned book and my report was due tomorrow! Shit!!

As it turned out, a huge snow storm hits the location in which we were to travel. Game cancelled! Now I can skim the rest of that overdue fucker so I can get my report written up. Lucky to have such an odd thing happen in West Texas during the fall?

Last exam day in College Station, a not-so-easy FINC semester final was about to be given, and I had that bitch by the tail. I was confident, or was I cocky, anyhow, I didnt study for the exam. I sat in class knowing how I was gonna ace the exam b/c I had aced the previous two exams in there. Suddenly as cocksure as I was, I began to hear questions and problems others were going over. You know about the talk that goes on before a test, dont be coy! One, then two, then wait.....I'm a bit rusty. I had busted my ass for this class, and I knew that I was going to go out with a B at most, if not a C. No fucking way! All this way and that shitty grade for being cocky,,,,,uhhhh,, I mean confident, yeah thats it, confident : - ).

Well, I began to sweat. Suddenly, the prof speaks up about how a few in the class were so unethical in some stunt pulled in the library....yada yada......I didn't know what the hell happened. Some stealing of something or other......she gave us the option......you can take the exam or you can take the average you have now. Oh hell yes, I didnt think twice and left that room. Videos to prove the culprit(s)! I was happy with my A! Lucky? Hmmmm....never had I been so happy to be through with my journey through college. Again, she was on my mind.

A good friend of mine, practically my older brother, decides to work in a different area of the hospital in a given night. Hours later, cops are there and many lose their licenses due to sexual misconduct and gross deglect. A prayerful, unselfish man gets off the hook for not working his regular shift b/c he got a weird feeling. Luck?

My punchline---luck is the common man's term for a gift. God's ever visible gift to man that others refuse to recognize as a gift and give it some petty word that signifies happenstance. Some things we cannot explain. Certain "why's" we cannot understand, yet we either loathe it or stand in awe of it. We get happy b/c of it, get frustrated by other's receipt of it, and tag it with some dumb word as if it meant nothing, and it was merely a mathematical uncertainty b/c we cannot believe it actually happened. No, its God's visible gift to an individual, made obvious to everyone to be seen and give thanks. Yet we are selfish and dont want to realize the fruitfulness of God's bestowing a blessing upon us, especially the other guy we cant stand.

Winning a lottery, showing up late to work at the World Trade center on 9/11, having your future spouse cross your path, avoiding that wreck in front of you b/c you just happened to move to the other lane, these are all gifts from God. I must say, for as much as I'm always questioning the Almighty, I have experienced many times his impeccable timing. As easily as creating man and earth, parting the Red Sea, raising Lazarus from the dead, healing the blind, pardoning the adultress, walking on water, putting up with my crap day after day, and expelling demons, God can play with the clock as easily as I can edit this blog. When something falls on your lap, God gave it to you, period!

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam