An Orchestrated Reunion

We live in a time when people do not show proper love and respect to one another, yet, in the body of Christ, we can walk in Christ's love and be thankful for the people God brings into our lives. Ephesians 1 states:
15 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,
16 do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him...

We can recognize and be thankful for the people in our lives with whom God has blessed us. We can reach out to them with the love of God and receive the blessings that God expresses through them. We can show respect and care and realize that He can keep us encouraged and focused on Him through other people.  We can trust God to fulfill His purposes through the relationships into which He calls us, and rejoice as we see Him work.

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Paul had entire groups of people, local churches, to whom he wrote letters, people to whom he was appointed to communicate. Philippians 1 provides such an example; he wrote:
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,
4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy,
5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now,
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ...

Ally Cole is a university student who grew up in Maryland.  She was adopted from an orphanage in Jenin, China when she was six years old, and decided to attend school in Virginia.

Ruby Wierzbicki is from New Jersey - she was adopted from the Jenin orphanage when she was four.  She is also a college student.

The two girls were adopted just one week apart.  

And, recently, they had a reunion - on the campus of Liberty University, according to the school's website. 

CBN.com reported on how the young ladies came together at the school; the article says:

Earlier this month, sophomore Ally Cole and freshman Ruby Wierzbicki were headed to class on the campus bus. Cole saw an empty seat near Wierzbicki so she sat down and the two started chatting.

During their conversation, the students discovered that they were both adopted from an orphanage in China, in the city of Jinan, and within one week of each other.

Wierzbicki and Cole compared childhood photos from 15 years ago on their phones to confirm the surreal discovery.

Ruby believed that the hand of God brought the two students together, saying, "There are people I've talked to about this and they've said, 'What a coincidence.' But we think that this is 100% God," adding, "There's no way that two people who were in the same orphanage in a different country can somehow end up at the same school at the same time and have it not be God."

Abby said, "I think God is so amazing for doing all of this. I think of it as a blessing because not a lot of people who are adopted get to know a whole lot about their past, but (we) got to do that by sharing our photos and talking about it."

Remember this: we serve a sovereign God, who orchestrates the events of our life for His purposes.  Through these instances, He shows Himself to be God.  He is full of love for us and we can depend on His wisdom and preeminence by surrendering our lives to Him.

We can also be thankful for those people whom God brings into our lives.  Paul demonstrated that thankfulness on several occasions in his writings, and we can reflect on how God has divinely placed people into our lives at just the time that we needed them - not by accident, not by coincident, but in cooperation with His plan.  We can be careful to depend on God to bring about His divine appointments and assignments.

You know, we don't always know how He is working, but we can be confident that He is working.  We can trust God to bring people into our lives to whom we can minister, and through whom we can find encouragement.