The Million Of Things That Put You Here

I was talking with my daughter today, who was talking to her grandfather yesterday (not my father).

He was saying that he always regretted he wasn't able to move to California years ago when he wanted to. Because he didn't have the money to do it. Or because he didn't think he had enough.

That allowed me to say to her, If he would've moved there, you would've never been born. Which is true in the sense that I would've never met her mother.

But it's not just that one fact but a million other facts that had to line up precisely so that she (or anyone) would ultimately be born. All the hundreds of generations before us had to go through their random moves and encounters. There's a lot of stuff that had to happen in a very precise way -- with no one regulating any of it -- for any of us to be here.

Except if you weren't here you wouldn't know about it, as far as I can tell.

I saw one of those signs on the side of the road that said "God knew your soul before you were born." Which, whether that's true or not, is an interesting thought. You might wonder in that case, Why be born? Wouldn't I have been more content wherever my soul was with God?

But if I would've stayed with God (in my soul contentment), I wouldn't have been here to continue the random chain of events that led to my daughter. And she expressed happiness that her Grandpa's big dream of moving to California never came true.