God Winks –How the power of Coincidence Guides Your Life II | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: This is the second part of a two part series. Here you will find the first part.

    How a book made me re-evaluate some of the events in my life.

    I have previously posted about the book "When God Winks" which offers the premise that not all the coincidences in life are just accidents. They could just be a nudge or "Wink" from the almighty to remind us that he is watching. Here is the first post.

    When my son was ready to go to college, he had several colleges in mind but settled on West Georgia University in Carrollton, Georgia. He was vaguely aware that he had some family history in Carroll County, but I had never really told him the story of my dad.

    After college, he moved back to Atlanta because the job market was better in Atlanta. He maintained contact with his college friends in Carrollton. Eventually he bought a house in Woodstock, Ga., which is a suburb of Atlanta.

    I guess the pull of his friends was just too strong and he decided to buy some land in Carroll County and build a house. He was also dating a girl from the area. He purchased ten acres with the intention of eventually building his dream house.

    Like most young men, he was in a hurry to build his house. On the day, he closed on the property he proposed to his girlfriend at the property. She accepted and they were married.

    He put his house in Woodstock up for sale and sold it within a month. He moved to Carrollton and began plans for building the house. He still worked in Atlanta and commuted daily to and from the job.

    Then he got the good news that he was going to be a father. That did not stop his plans to build the house. They broke ground and started construction with the hope that they would be finished before the baby was born. If you have ever been your own contractor, you know the scenario. There were delays, weather, poor workers and all the other things that can go wrong with building a house.

    The baby was born in mid-July and they were still not in the house. As I write this, the anticipated competition date is October 1.

    When my grandson was born, I was struck by what could be considered another coincidence.



    My dad was born in Carrollton, Georgia in 1906 on Dixie Street. Like most southern towns of that era, Carrollton at that time had a town square with a tall confederate memorial in the middle of the town, which still had dirt streets. My dad was born in a boarding house that his mother managed. Dad eventually moved to Atlanta to get work away from the farm. His whole family was born and raised in Carrollton.





    My son named his boy Sullivan. Sully is not a family name but he also named him after me, and my dad. Sullivan Anthony Loyd . When I asked how he came up with the name Sullivan. He says it was a strong name but what cemented it for him and his wife was a comedy routine about Captain Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger, who landed the Airbus on the Hudson River in 2009. Here is the video link to the 2 minute comedy video.

    Captain Sully says "In so many areas of life, you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist. That's especially true given the inherent dangers in aviation. You can't be a wishful thinker. You have to know what you know and don't know, and what your airplane can and can't do in every situation."

    So there is the kernel of the name Sully for my son. A dreamer and a realist mixed together and demonstrated by a man who remained calm in the storm and saved 155 lives.



    Now here is the coincidence:

    1. My grand boy's great, great ,great granddad Fletcher Moreland Stamps is buried on a family plot 6 miles outside of Carrollton. Fletcher donated a corner of his pasture to build Salem Baptist Church and is buried there. (1912)
    2. My son's grandad (My dad) was born in 1906 on Dixie Street
    3. My son went to West Georgia University in Carrollton 2002.
    4. My son's house is 8 miles from the center of Carrollton. (2014)
    5. My son's son was born on Dixie Street less than 1/2 mile from where his great grandad was born (109 years later in 2015).

    Most would indeed call that a coincidence but I think of it as a God Wink. We hardly ever discussed the family history in Carrollton, as most young men are too busy living their life to be bothered with family history. I was the same way in my 20's and 30's. Nevertheless, I cannot help but think that there is some higher meaning that the family roots from mid-1800 through 2015 are not just an accident in my mind. All that history occurred within a ten (10) mile circle around my father's family ancestral home.

    Proverbs 19:21New International Version (NIV)
    21 Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.