Have a "Random" New Year?

It may sound odd, but this post really began several months ago when I was in the bathroom at work. Don't get scared! It's safe to keep reading, I promise! =)

As I was washing my hands I looked down through the floor-to-ceiling window to the parking lot 6 floors below. In doing so, I just happened to notice that there was a small 3" by 3" wooden tile with the word "Grapefruit" written on it. It was just laying there on the floor by the window. For the next several months I noticed it every time I went into that bathroom. Every time I saw it, I thought about how random it was. I wondered how it got there, why "Grapefruit," and did anybody else EVER notice it? Then one day last week I noticed it was gone.

That silly little wooden tile made me stop and think. Practically every day I saw it and thought about how random it was, that life itself is random. So eventually I actually looked up some definitions of the word "random." Some are complicated and relate to mathematical probabilities and statistics; some are theological and delve into the deep world of chance, fate, free will, and choice. But the one that fit for me was "something unknown, unidentified, or out of place" and "odd and unpredictable in an amusing way."

I think that sometimes we get busy and don't take time to notice the random little things in our lives, but I think we should. We should see them, treasure them, watch for them. They are what make each day special and unique from the others. They can keep life from being hum-drum, same ol' same ol' boring. The unusual, crazy, unpredictable, out-of-place things are what add spice to life.

Need a few more examples than just a "Grapefruit" tile? Here are a few other things that broke through and caught my attention forcing me to notice the random.

• How within days of moving into my apartment, I got home from work and parked the car. I looked up just in time to see a heron in the pond by my apartment catch and eat a fish. Living in the middle of a city, that was totally random, but utterly cool.
• How I recently spent half the night awake with my sister when I should have been sleeping because an injured beaver was in our parking lot when she got home from work and we were trying to get someone to come help it.
• How of all the NFL teams out there, my little brother has become a fan of the same football team that I have liked since I was 13, the Green Bay Packers. Oddly enough, it's because his school starts with "G" and their font and colors look the same as Green Bay's. My dad believes the Dallas Cowboys should be the family's only team and is, needless to say a little horrified, but I am thrilled.
• How I discovered a cool new TV show from co-workers and checked it out while my sister was in Texas for Thanksgiving. I thought she would like it and planned to tell her about it when she returned only to find that she was introduced to the same show by our family during the same week and she planned on sharing it with me!
• How the very day I watched "Facing the Giants" again, I found myself crying out to God that I would still love Him, just as they did when faced with God saying "No" to their dreams.
• How I managed to lock my keys and my cell phone into my car two times exactly a year apart - both on my way to OKC on Memorial Day weekend, both at Shell gas stations while filling up my gas tank, both the same time of day down to the hour.
• How my best friend moved away from OKC on June 1st this year, a year to the day that I moved back to OKC from Nashville.
• How I got pooped on by a bird while walking in Bricktown last spring.
• How my experience while buying my first car came in handy when my sister had oddly similar things happen while buying her first car.
• How things can look like a tragedy and still turn out for the best.
• How I will feel sad or down and see a message on my phone from someone saying they are praying for me.
• How I accidentally threw my work keys into the dumpster and had to go dumpster diving to get them.
• How I will think about someone or something and get my phone out to text them only to get a text from them about the same exact thing right as I pick up the phone.
• How God will be working on something in my heart and someone else will mention that God is working on the same thing in their life.

Another definition of random is "without definite aim, purpose, or method; in a haphazard way; without any rhyme or reason." I also read about how something could appear to be random and lacking pattern or order to one person but not appear random to another because they can see the pattern.

A couple days ago, I watched "Signs" (one of my favorite movies) again. The central theme is about faith and whether or not there are coincidences or if everything happens for a reason, as signs pointing us to God and His presence in our lives. It's plain to me that the randomness in my life is certainly odd, unusual, and unpredictable often in a comical way, but it's not aimless, purposeless, or haphazard at all.

So at the end of this my 40th post, my prayer for myself and all of you this New Years would be this - that our lives be wonderfully, marvelously, comically random. Let one of your New Year's Resolutions be to watch for those random things throughout your day, your week, your life. Embrace them! Enjoy them! Allow them to bring a smile to your face. After all, they might just be God giving you a little "sign" that He's still there and that your life isn't really so random after all.