The ARDS Foundation - Body, Mind, & Spirit

By Pastor Ian

Pre-Destination or Just my Luck?

A couple of days ago my wife Irene and I were taking in the beauty of the countryside around us as we walked steadily and quickly along our chosen route. It was one of these moments together when we were reflecting on times shared during the previous thirty nine years…..That’s right…39 years. Hardly seems possible but there it is. We will have been married 37 years as of the middle of this year, and knew each other for about three years prior. Hey, make that 40 years!

As we talked about our relationship, we reflected on the fact that these years contained their ups and their downs…the twists and turns on the road of life that, to say the least, keep you on your toes. But we could not get away from the idea that “we were meant to be together;” that somehow or another, in the very first meeting, Something far greater than ourselves had helped us to come together and had been the glue of our relationship ever since. When we talk to our friends who have also been together for a long number of years, a similar situation presents itself…. a feeling of pre-destination.

When we try to understand pre-destination, we should also consider the element of ‘luck.’ For example, a person playing Russian roulette with a 6 chambered revolver and 1 bullet has a 1 in 6 chance of firing the revolver, but that is not to say that the revolver will actually fire if the trigger is pulled six times following the random spinning of the chamber. It might never fire, although the odds of that being the case are impossible. Alternately, it might fire on the very first attempt. In other words, a loaded gun will fire at some point in time if the trigger is pulled often enough. Likewise a driver who consistently shoots red lights will at some point meet a vehicle crossing at the same time, and the factors affecting the timing are simply the number of vehicles on the road at any one time. Trying this stunt at 2.00 a.m. will have less chance of a collision than if it is done at rush hour.

Now before I venture any further into this thought process, let me say at once that I do not believe, nor am I saying that “Uncle Johnnie’s car accident,” or ‘Auntie Mary’s battle with ARDS was meant to be. No, not at all! Our lives are often affected by random events…like Uncle Johnnie being in the vehicle that was struck by a drunk driver shooting a red light. What I am trying to suggest is that the course of our lives is often influenced by the result of tiny decisions which seem so insignificant at the time, and yet when they are viewed from hindsight, have huge consequences that discount luck or randomness. What follows describes how I met my wife Irene, and I let you decide whether you believe in pre-destination or luck.

One Saturday night, back in October 1965, I was settling down to watch television. It was about 7.00 p.m. when the phone rang. (We did have them back then although they were attached to a 10 ft long chord, and you could have any color you wanted provided it was black!) It was my friend Peter calling to ask me if I would go with him to a dance in the city. It took him 5 minutes to persuade me to leave the comfort of home and set out on what was usually a fruitless quest to find a member of the opposite sex with whom I would care to spend more than half an hour. I had been struggling with relationships, probably because I had a better rapport with my putter and my 9 iron due to too many hours spent on the golf course. We met, and I drove us in my red Morris Mini, arriving somewhat late at the famous place called The Majestic Ballroom, although there was nothing “Majestic” about it. It had the standard 20 piece band playing the even then, nostalgic Glenn Miller / Benny Goodman music. Jackets and ties were mandatory for the guys, and a group of ‘bouncers’ kept the evening well-mannered. You didn’t cross a Scottish bouncer…trust me!

It must have been something about having been dragged out, but I determined to overcome my usual shyness. I made a number of visits to the dance floor with various young women before dancing with one person with whom I seemed to relate. After several sorties round the dance floor, the inevitable question arose about how we were going to be making our way to our respective homes. As I asked what I thought was a ‘shoe-in’ rhetorical question: “can I drive you home tonight,?” I received the unbelievable response…."Sorry, I have my own car with me." A couple of dances later we parted company, never to meet again. What if?

But luck, or was it pre-destination waiting in the wings for me, because I had just left the dance floor and almost stepped on the toes of a young woman I had ‘known’ from afar for several years. She regularly walked her dog near the golf course, and I had often thought that I would really like to get to know her. The opportunity just never seemed to arise, and the meeting never took place. What was more to the point was, that even though we lived less than a half mile from each other, her life took her into different friendship circles, which was probably just as well.

Feeling totally miffed at my recent ‘failure’ when I thought I was “all set,” as we used to say…I approached Irene with a rather diffident attitude, expecting the big heave ho, and being quite surprised when she accepted my offer to dance. I can pin the date down to one Saturday night in October 1965, and there were five of them beginning at October 2 nd 1965. I could probably have gone to this place on any of the other four Saturdays, and missed out on meeting Irene who seldom attended the Majestic. What was it that began this series of events making me:

Help a buddy out by going with him to a dance?

Take my car instead of his?

Meet another woman who was also driving a car?

Find myself almost standing on a person’s toes, whom I had admired for years?

Was all of this simple chance…just the luck of the draw, or was there something more propitious at work? Ooops…I was almost about to say “sinister.” Definitely not the right choice of words!

As Irene and I walked along the road at a local beauty spot forty years later, we both agreed that we were meant to be together. It is said that opposites attract. There could not have been two people more opposite in our personalities / attitudes / activities / friends / lifestyles, and yet we bonded in the course of the next few months following that first meeting, and were married in 1968. Smooth sailing it definitely was not, but there was a mutual respect and almost unspoken understanding between us which surpassed any superficial disagreements that arose.

There seems to be certain times in our lives when we feel we are simply onlookers to events over which we have no control, and are simply paragraphs in the book of life. On the other hand, I have watched friends and acquaintances pay little heed to the well known negative consequences of excessive consumption of food, tobacco, drugs or alcohol and as a result, pay the ultimate price, becoming an epilogue in the process.

So luck, when considered from the above perspectives, isn’t really luck at all, but the culmination of a series of factors with a mathematical probability of occurrence. Meeting my wife in the way I have described was, I believe, more than just ‘luck.’ I believe we were both meant to be in that place at that time, with the rest being up to ourselves. What we made of the opportunity was our part in our individual books of life, causing them to become one volume, with its pages now being authored by two.

I’ll leave the last word to Irene who shares with you an extract from her diary dated October 30 th. 1965: Little did she know how these words would affect the next forty years of her life…

“……..At night, Myra and I went to the Majestic. I met Ian Robb from Clarkston. I drove a bit of the way home in his Mini.”

So my friends, what is your book of life doing? Do your pages contain pre-destination, or do you put it all down to being “Just My Luck?” I’d be interested to know.

Pastor Ian

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