A Personal Story of Hope During Chaos

Every now and then, in this baffling jigsaw of life, some unseen force bends logic just to send us little clues. Synchronicities provide us with a wink of support. I know I’ve mentioned in the group, shortly after we started quarantining, another family moved into our house. I’m so grateful for there presence and help. That’s Briana in the picture here, and Martin, my son. It’s made a challenging time so much fun.

Over the past four years, we’ve become like one big family, but we actually met under very synchronistic circumstances. In August 2016, after a family emergency, I was suddenly dunked into the position of needing childcare for my 2-year-old from a stranger. I’m usually an optimist, but I was sleepless and terrified. In this case, the question in my heart came out as a constant prayer, “Please God help me find someone who needs me as badly as I need them.”

This is a good moment to point out that desperation can get us really stuck. We want a job so bad that no one will hire us, or we want a date so bad that no one will call us.

That goes for aspiring authors too. I remember a time when I wanted to be published so bad my voice would crack when I talked about it. All the emotion weighed down my sentences like pound cake. I packed so much into them, they were hardly digestible. Again, this is why meditation is so important. It’s the practice of stepping outside that pressure, no matter what’s going on.

Which brings me back to the story.  My desperation to find someone to care for my son when I wasn’t there could have put me in a default position of trusting no one, quitting my job, spiraling down financially and staying stuck.

Instead, I meditated. I practiced being calm for ten minutes every morning. Then with a dozen phone numbers of women looking for work, I lived my question. What else could I do?

On the first day of interviews, the first person I was supposed to meet with canceled. Anxiety raged. Nobody wants this job, I’m alone in this world, nobody can help me. I was lost in this train of thought, when my buzzer rang. My second appointment had arrived thirty minutes early. I looked again at her name and phone number. The first six digits were 319-319. 319 was the area code where I growing up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and I couldn’t help but notice it. I felt held, I felt home.

When I met Nidia, my heart expanded. She was intelligent, sincere and had just immigrated from Venezuela to Colombia (where we live) a few weeks before. We needed one another. She wanted to establish herself here so she could bring the rest of her family over from Caracas. The connection seemed so obvious that I ended up canceling most of the other interviews and hired her the next day.

At the time I had no idea that her family included a granddaughter, Briana who was the same age as my son, and would become like a sister as they grew up together. Looking back I can’t imagine what it would have been like to make it through those difficult times without one another.

As challenges mount, synchronicities such as these keep your chin up when you’re on a creative mission. And let’s face it, writing a book requires a lot of faith. Some of the most fulfilling projects and relationships of my life have come together by recognizing the signs. I hope for all of us, that even in difficult circumstances life can fall into place a day at a time.