God works in mysterious ways

About a year and a half ago, I attended a week-long conference in North Carolina. I went alone. There must have been about 400 other people at the conference. I didn’t know a single one of them. It was a little overwhelming, but the mountains were beautiful and the conference schedule kept me busy from daybreak to sunset.

Towards the end of the week, I made my way through the serving line of the conference center cafeteria for lunch, then carried my tray out into the dining room. Still not completely comfortable but pressing on, I looked around for an empty chair and some smiling faces among the strangers.

I sat down at a table with four or five women I’d never met.  We all were wearing conference name tags but still introduced ourselves. We chatted about conference speakers and the delicious desserts. Then we went a little further with the personal identifications asking questions like, “So, where are you from?” and “What do you do?”

In the midst of those get-to-know-you pleasantries, Lindsey Brackett, a young woman from Georgia, said she was writing a novel. The conversation went on around the table. When I answered the “where are you from” question, I probably responded with something like “a small town near Charleston.” In a crowd of strangers somewhere other than South Carolina, I’m inclined to broaden my geographical whereabouts in hopes of finding some general recognition for this part of the state. Lindsey piped up and asked, “What small town?”

Just as soon as the word ‘Walterboro’ came out of my mouth, Lindsey’s face lit up. It turns out, the setting for the novel she was working on was none other than Colleton County. We spent the rest of that lunch hour chirping about familiar people and places in Walterboro and Edisto.

Of the 400 strangers who came from all over the country for the conference, how did I end up at an 8-seat table with someone writing a novel set in Colleton County? I don’t think it was just a coincidence. 

The novel Lindsey was working on was inspired by her own family vacations to Edisto Beach. Lindsey’s mother once lived in Walterboro, as did her maternal grandparents. As a child, Lindsey made trips to Walterboro and Edisto for family visits. She drew from her own personal experience as she created this beautiful work of fiction.

Lindsey’s novel, Still Waters, was published and released on September 8 this year. Chapter 1 of the book begins with repercussions from Hurricane Katrina thwarting life plans of one of the main characters, Cora Anne. The storm threw her life off course and she ended up at Edisto with her grandmother for the summer.

The crushing memory of a tragic childhood event kept Cora Anne from being at peace with her family and at Edisto. The memory of that event also included a white capped ocean and dark skies. That storm, too, altered the direction of Cora Anne’s life long before the winds and waves of Hurricane Katrina ever stirred.

So, how does a book that seems to have somewhat of a storm theme end up with a title like Still Waters? The book cover hints at it with a depiction of the sentinel tree at Botany Bay. Weathering storms often takes its toll, but what’s left standing in the aftermath is the calm, still water that brings the peace of being able to claim survival.

The day that Still Waters released, Lindsey was busy doing all the promotional things authors do on release day. That same day, Colleton County began preparing for Hurricane Irma. Irma’s path changed several times before Edisto Beach took on the high tidal surge a couple of days later. Edisto weathered the storm, but the Botany Bay sentinel tree became a casualty claimed by Irma. The landscape there was changed forever.

Was it a coincidence that a fictional book about facing the storms in life was released within days of an actual storm hitting the very setting of the novel? I don’t think so, and here’s why:  “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:16-17.

These things that some people might attribute to coincidence, I tend to see as confirmation that the Creator of human life holds us close. He knows every detail. He puts people in my path that have a story I need to hear. He allows storms in my life so that the clutter and dead wood will be washed away. He never lets go even when there’s nothing else left.

Lindsey said it so eloquently, “And this is why I write. Because no matter how the storms change us, when I tell a story, I can remember how things were and they can live again. It's in the looking back we find the lessons for moving forward.”

The God who was, and is, and is to come, holds us together through it all. 

The was originally posted by The Press and Standard October 22, 2017