When Circumstances Conspire

My friend Andy calls them “sovereign coincidences.” 

It was a cold, Friday night during my second senior year of college. I was sitting on an old, stuffy couch underneath a lofted bed in my friend’s dorm room when the phone rang.

That phone was attached to the wall by a cord. Yes, I am an old man.

Despite this not being my room, I reached over, picked up the phone, and said, “Hello?” 

My friend’s younger sister was on the line. Though she was a complete stranger to me, we talked for about 45 minutes before I handed the phone to my friend. 

And that is how I met my wife.

After two kids and 20 years of marriage, I look back at those curious circumstances, and I say, “God, I’m so thankful.” 

When I graduated from college I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. That’s a feeling that’s come and gone over the years, but it was especially acute back then. My lack of ambition was rivaled only by my lack of direction. I didn’t know where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to do, so I chose not to do anything.

One of my friends was headed off to graduate school in my hometown. He needed a roommate, and I needed a place to stay, so I agreed to split the rent while I did some substitute teaching and checked taxes at my dad’s law firm. 

Later that same year, another phone call from a stranger changed my world.

A man named Mr. Roskins called with a question, “How would you like to sub at L-M tomorrow?”

I said, “Sure. What’s L-M?”

L-M was short for Louisa-Muscatine, a rural school in the middle of nowhere. The principal was looking for a high school social studies teacher. He lived next door to the sub secretary from a neighboring district. The night before he leaned over the fence and asked her if she had anyone that might be able to help. She passed along my name and phone number.

And that’s how I became a teacher. 

However, happenstance wasn’t through with me yet… 

A few months after officially being hired for that social studies position, I found myself being called into the hallway during New Teacher Orientation. It was my second day on the job. Had I done something wrong already?

The athletic director was looking for a JV volleyball coach. Practice was starting in a couple of days, and the position was still vacant. To be clear, I knew nothing about volleyball, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I had a coaching authorization and a pulse. 

“If you can coach, you can coach,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure, but the following Monday I started my coaching career.

After 12 years in the classroom, and 23 seasons on the sidelines, I look back at these random coincidences, and I say, “God, I’m so thankful.”

When circumstances conspire to alter our path in such dramatic ways, we often credit an invisible hand for working in the background for our good. After all, I could never have orchestrated these moments on my own, and yet they produced the greatest blessings of my life. Providence must be at work.

Of course, I come to that conclusion with the benefit of hindsight. I could not have known where that phone call would lead, or how much coaching would come to define my personal and professional life. I did not hear a choir of angels when I picked up the phone (though I’m sure my wife did), or have any inkling where my coaching career would take me. Those moments seemed rather ordinary at the time, though they appear monumental as I look back on them today..

That’s the thing with these sovereign coincidences - they can only be decoded with the passage of time. Before Providence shows its hand, we are often left with nothing more than a belief that things will once again work out in the end.

That is an important thing to remember when it seems like circumstances are conspiring against you.

It’s been a while since I’ve written, and truth be told… It's been hard to figure out how my truth should be told. 

Two months removed from a state title, our lives were turned upside-down following a series of unfortunate events that have resulted in my semi-retirement from the game. For the first time in my adult life, I will not be coaching a high school sport, a notion I am still getting used to.

While those early coincidences felt like a “coming together,” this feels much more like a “tearing apart.”

And yet, they are still just circumstances. Regardless of how they feel in the short term, I am reminded that even these coincidences are likely sovereign in ways I cannot yet see. 

How does the old saying go, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and conviction of things not yet seen.” 

I’ll be honest, that’s proving to be tougher than I imagined.

When Tony Dungy was dismissed from the Buccaneers, he wrote, “God just wanted me to move on to a different situation. His time for me in Tampa had been completed.”

Simple. Elegant. Confident. It’s as though he knew there was a different work waiting for him on the horizon.

And so here I am, my time on the sidelines done (for now), stubbornly waiting for Providence to show its hand while desperately trying to fight through the pain and uncertainty to say… God, I’m so thankful. 

And yet, as circumstances have their way with me, I am quietly reminded that I am simply in the midst of another sovereign coincidence. 

Just wait and see.
Food for thought.

Nate Sanderson can be reached at [email protected]  

References:

Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy (2007)

The phrase “sovereign coincidence” appeared in a song by the Andrew Landers Project called Bittersweet (2009)