While I have commented at some length on divine providence before in the Bible [1] [2], I have seldom commented at length on my own thoughts about divine providence in my own life for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that I am not the sort of person who likes to be presumptuous, and because I find talking about such matters a bit uncomfortable. Perhaps I am also somewhat uncomfortable with the matter because I have often tended not to look at the positive side of my particularly dramatic life until God’s care and protection of me was made forcefully evident over the past few months. Nonetheless, for some time I have pondered the particular divine providence that has led me to where I am, and I think that at least in one small aspect of my life, I would like to give proper thanks to God for His indirect care and concern for me and I would like to explain how it has brought me to a suburb of Seattle today.

This past winter, for about a month, I worked as a seasonal helper for UPS, an experience I have blogged about [3]. It was hard work and got me a lot of exercise, but there was a great deal of enjoyment in it as well. However, there are some aspects of that job that have related very well to my current job that show the hand of divine providence, and that while I am somewhat embarrassed to talk about them, I think it would do well to explain the way my life works and the way I tend to think and ponder and meditate on life and the odd course that is has taken. Perhaps others may reflect on divine providence in the course of their own lives as well.

When I started working as a helper, my first couple of days I was with a new driver who was really friendly, and I got to know the area of Happy Valley somewhat better (which was a very good thing!). After that, though, I was called to be a helper at the Clackamas Town Center and it did not go well at all. Things started poorly when I went to the wrong Macy’s bay and waited for a truck to come that never did, and by the time I got to the right dock the driver had left to do his AM commit packages and I had clearly made a bad first impression. Though I helped the other driver and his helper when they pulled up a few minutes later, it would appear that the impression did not get better that day as I worked my way through the service corridors of the Clackamas Town Center, and was extremely dehydrated (and quite faint with hunger by the end of the day). The next day I was told quite firmly that my services were no longer required, but later that week the driver I had started with needed a helper, as his helper had overslept, and I was willing and able to do it. After the following weekend I ended up working with a gung-ho and hard working driver for most of the rest of my time (along with another friendly driver who occasionally covered for the same route) and so by the time that peak season had ended I had made a positive impression on three drivers at least, given my willingness to work hard and smart.

Even in this there was considerable divine providence. Ironically enough, the poor first impression I made on the second driver (which has since, apparently, been rectified, as he has been pretty friendly in the several times I have run into him in the course of our mutual travels around the Town Center area), where I have ran into him while on my way to grocery shopping, while walking around the Town Center Transit Center, while in the UPS store faxing employment documents for my current job, and when he delivered a book to me. However, that initial poor impression may have helped save my life, given the fact that the same service corridors I wandered through while working at the Clackamas Town Center were the place that the shooter at the mall about a week after I worked there decided to end his own life his own murderous rampage [4]. In a way, therefore, my own terrible day may have saved my life by keeping me out of the path of a homicidal murderer, as well as keeping me from the trauma of having been in such a horrifying experience, given that I already have PTSD and probably do not need more trauma in my life.

That said, the fact that things ended up working well was obviously an act of divine providence as well. This is not only because I really needed the money, but also for another reason I found out yesterday. UPS keeps records (scorecards, if you will) on their experience with past employees (even seasonal helpers like myself), and those people who receive a bad report overall are not able to return to the company in any fashion. There are people, for example, who applied to the job I am training for that were unable to work because they had not acquired a good reputation through their past service, even if they have grown up and gotten more mature or hardworking since then. Thus, had those people in management kept a bad impression of me, I would not have been able to do the job I am learning how to do now, which would have been quite sad, as I am greatly enjoying myself here. Nonetheless, it worked out in such a fashion as to teach a bit of humility and encourage me to prove myself even harder, to protect me from harm, and to provide future opportunity, and I’m glad for such an opportunity.

What tends to happen, though, is that my ability to recognize such an indirect form of divine providence was probably aided by the fact that my entire time back in the United States has been marked by a recognition of the benign hand of God working through my life in ways that I have perhaps not been sufficiently sensitive to. Once a person recognizes divine providence in some aspects in life, it is easier to see God’s hand working in other places and in other ways. In large part, we find what we truly seek. Perhaps after spending so long seeking divine providence in the threads of the lives of other people, it was time enough for me to see how God has not only delivered me from harm but put me into a good situation. It is my hope to show myself worthy of such honor and grace in my own conduct, and to show the gratitude I feel for it.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/divine-providence-in-the-book-of-ruth-part-one/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/divine-providence-in-the-story-of-naaman-the-syrian/

[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/12/25/what-can-brown-do-for-you/

[4] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/trouble-on-my-street/