Today I was walking home at lunchtime and I walked by a house that we had considered buying when we moved to this town 13 years ago. It was a nice enough, but in the end we decided against it because we got our current house with our first offer.
There are a handful of other houses in town that we could say the same thing about. One in a bit nicer neighborhood but had tiny rooms; one that was much larger but was a repo and so would have taken a lot of work we didn't want to do; one that was brand new but would have required a lot of extra costs to move in. Even though I despise our kitchen I still really like our house and don't think about moving.
But at times my mind wanders to thoughts about something random like that...what if our house had not been for sale and we had moved into a different one? Would we still be living in this town? What kind of friends might my kids have made instead of the ones that they did? Would they have ever been hurt living in that house because it had a tree in the backyard in which to play? Would my wife have taken the job that she did (which happens to be around the corner and in walking distance to our house)? Would the higher costs of other houses have prevented us from doing other things we wanted to do, like buy a newer car or go on a trip?
Even little choices like what house we chose to buy have helped shape our destiny as a family. When I watch a sci-fi show that speaks of multiple timelines, usually the points of separation are about some Big thing, like who won a war, or a famous scientist dying or not dying in an accident. But most little twists and turns of our existence are about so much more simple.
I wonder how God looks at these things?
