if you know me, you’ll probably know I (used to be??) a bit of a control freak. my current control-freak status is up for debate.

anyway.

I’ve really been trying, for a while now, to trust in the bigger picture, to trust in God, to trust in the plan, whatever you want to call it.

today, I spent all day in bed, telling myself all I had to do was get up for Mass at six. it is Lent, so going to Mass is an even bigger deal than normal for me, and I go every week.

I told myself I would get up and shower and leave by 5:20 to catch the bus and get there with time to spare. it takes 10 minutes to get there, so I was being extra generous with my time.

I walked out of the village at 5:20. plenty of time to make it to Mass.

when I walked out, there was a Red Frogs van. the red frogs come to the village every other week to cook us dinner at the bbq. I have become friends with two of the girls in particular, Nancy and Jackie. it happened to be Nancy and Jackie with the van.

I didn’t know that the red frogs did a service for college students on Sunday nights. I stopped to chat and they invited me to come. this meant I would miss Mass. I was unsure.

as I was debating it in my head, thinking of an excuse to get to Mass, I watched the bus I needed to catch drive past us.

I took it as a sign that God had other plans for my night than Mass, and agreed to go to the red frog service.

I am so thankful I missed that bus.

when we got to Elevation church, we were greeted with bags of freebies and a meal ticket for dinner after the service. we walked into the church to the sound of drums, bass, guitar, keys – all out Hillsong style worship.

the sermon was a good one – why do bad things happen to good people? the big question. at the end, kmwhat I took from the message was that bad things happen because the world is messed up and we all sin, but that God allows these things to happen so He can do something significant in our lives – build relationships, help others through their struggles, etc.

after the service, a friend from the village and I grabbed our (free!!) Larry’s Pizza, and sat down to chat. real, deep, meaningful conversations are hard to come by in a new place with new people, so I braced myself for another conversation about the weather or homesickness.

I was in for a shock.

my friend and I talked about how the surmon made us feel, and the conversation turned to the “bad things” that sometimes happen to “good” people. I put the “good” in quotations as the sermon made us question our goodness. however, the sermon also emphasized that the bad things that happen to us are not always our fault, and that sometimes we don’t deserve the bad things in our lives.

we talked about the bad things. sexual assualt, illness, depression, jail, losing jobs, homelessness, you name it.

we talked about how we both came to Australia to do a bit of soul searching, to find ourselves.

we talked about what we know about our identities.

journalist. artist. gypsy. writer. mountain woman. we kept telling each other things we knew.

and at the end of that conversation, both in tears and realizing how much two strangers can have in common, we learned another identity we shared.

survivor.

our stories had many differences, and maybe they actually had more similarities, but we have both survived something.

we have both survived something that, as “good” people, would be considered “bad.” we agreed that neither of us deserved these bad things and neither of these bad things were our fault. in the 30 minute conversation we had tonight, we built a new friendship, and helped each other through the struggle.

if you haven’t caught on yet, that is exactly what the sermon was saying is the point of all the bad things that people go through.

little moments like this much needed night just lead me to believe that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

here, in Australia, in Parramatta, at Western Sydney University, and tonight, at Elevation eating free pizza instead of being at Mass. one tiny difference in my plan was God’s plan. and that is exactly where I am supposed to be.