Unlike many of my other blog posts, there is very little background or build up to this particular episode of GodIncidence.  It is pretty simple really.  Today is Christmas Eve. Sometime between 10 and 11 o’clock this morning, our doorbell rang. I was in our home office at the time, working on an another blog post – Follow the Yellow Brick Road – that I just published a short while ago. Our daughter went to see who was at the door and my wife followed behind her.  I heard voices, but couldn’t hear specific content. A few minutes later, my wife walked in and handed me our January 2017 church offering envelopes. She said that a woman, named Faith Smith, was just at the door and she gave her our church envelopes.

(Her last name was not Smith, but her first name was Faith. To be honest, I don’t remember what her actual last name was, but it was not a widely common name like Smith and it is important to the story. Regardless of her real last name, I would have changed it here for privacy either way.)

Faith told my wife that she lives on another street several blocks away from us with the same house number as ours. Apparently she is semi-regularly getting our mis-delivered mail and she has just been bringing it past our house and putting it into our mailbox.  But for whatever reason — maybe because they were church envelopes; maybe because it is Christmas Eve; maybe because she is growing weary of silently doing the post office’s job behind the scenes; or maybe for no identifiable reason in her mind, but merely as part of the mystery of GodIncidence — Faith Smith decided to ring our doorbell and personally hand those envelopes to someone in our house.

My wife then told me the ironic part.  She said that Faith Smith closely resembled a mother she knows through our daughter’s dance studio — close enough that they could be sisters. That mother’s name is Hope Smith (where Smith is again a substituted name for privacy purposes of the exact same privatized name above).

But for now, these three continue: faith, hope, and charity. And the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13

What are the chances that these women named after the first two of the three theological virtues share an identical last name and bear a striking resemblance to each other? What are the chances that Faith came to our house on Christmas Eve delivering our church offering envelopes? What are the chances that there is a similar looking Charity Smith out there who has not yet crossed my wife’s path?

Okay, maybe that last one is taking the GodIncidence too far, but really who’s to say? While I would not necessarily expect it, I’m certainly not willing to disregard it. As the State motto of Ohio (drawn from Matthew 19:26) says: With God, All Things Are Possible.

Today God sent Faith to our household on the day before we celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. May God Bless everyone who reads these comments. I pray that He has sent Faith to many others on this day, as well as Hope and Charity. Merry Christmas to all!

Praise God!!!