Coincidence

I don't believe in coincidences. I believe God is moving all the pieces and occasionally He likes to get our attention by moving two pieces that haven't seen each other in a long time close together again.
Annually we take the Shriners treat all of the city's DARE students to the Shrine Circus in February. Thousands of kids and teachers and parents are bussed to and from the event. I walked my kids back out to their bus, which was among a sea of school buses, and then headed back into the auditorium as my patrol car was on the opposite side of the building and the temperatures were uncomfortably low. I ran back up toward the doors as students continued to pour out. I thought the students had to be almost all out and the doors would then close and lock once the last student came out but as I got closer I realized that the door was stuck open and stopped running. As I got inside I headed toward the main hallway. I heard someone call "Kurt!" from behind me. I spun around and was looking at a once familiar face, a former girlfriend and co-worker from about 10-15 years ago. She is someone I have wondered from time to time about. Did she get married? Is she OK? Who has she become? God gave us apporximately 30 seconds to talk. I gave her a big hug. I would have loved to talk to her for another half hour and reminisce. As a DARE Officer the circus starts off with all of us DARE officers being introduced in the center ring (I have such a rock star job!). Anyway I found out that she bragged to her students at last years circus when she saw me that she knew me, which made me laugh that anyone would brag that they know me! She is a para-educator at an OPS school, but she either didn't say which one or I didn't remember it. She parted saying, "I'll see you next year." I thought as I drove away of other questions I'd have loved to ask her and wondered if I could track her down. And then I realized that God did that. And that the amount of time he gave us was the perfect amount of time too. Instead of wasting any more effort on greedy grabs for more time, I appreciated the time God gave me and the fact that I got to see her at all. She is OK!
It also make realize all of the women I come in contact with are someone's ex-girlfriend that they wonder once a year about. They are all a treasured friend to someone both now and in the past. I could honor my friend not by trying to contact her, but by treating the friends of others the way I might treat her, the checkout lady at Target, the counter girls at the cleaners, my daycare lady.