People often describe a coincidence orchestrated by God as a "God Wink." Looking back over my life, I see many of them.
I consider it a God Wink that I was blessed with parents who loved God, loved each other, and loved my sister and me.
My cousins told me that when I was only a few weeks old, they took turns holding me while my mother taught her Sunday School class. As soon as I could walk and talk, I had a Sunday School class of my own.
Our church had a little beehive offering bank that chimed every time we dropped our pennies into it. More than seventy years later, friends tell me that beehive still thanks children for their offerings.
My faith continued to grow through Sunday School, catechism, church membership, First Communion, choir, Luther League, and church camp at Oakwood Park on beautiful Lake Wawasee. Later, at Purdue University, I became active in the Lutheran Student Association. We gathered for Wednesday morning Bible study and Sunday evening suppers, and students with cars made sure the rest of us always had rides to church.
When my sister, Georganna Leslie, came home from the Lutheran Via de Cristo weekend, she was radiant! I wanted what she had! I’ve been in church all my life. But to experience God’s love like that. It has been said that God goes from you head to your heart or one knows about God to one knows God. I was able to live a Lutheran Via de Cristo weekend and it changed my life.
Another God Wink or two appeared when I met and married by husband, Dave.
I first met Dave through a friend at a summertime ski club party. Because we were both in relationships at the time, it took a few twists and turns over a year’s time for us to finally get together unexpectedly and get married on January 2, 1976.
Dave was Episcopalian, while I was Lutheran. Because I had helped survey communities for new Lutheran congregations, we first attended the Lutheran church nearest our home. I thought it would be a good fit because Dave, who sold insurance, knew both the pastor and his wife.
Then one Sunday, during Communion, the pastor ran out of wafers. When more were brought forward, he simply poured them into the ciborium without blessing them. Dave, who had served faithfully as an Episcopal altar boy, was deeply troubled.
I agreed that we should try his Episcopal parish instead.
From the moment we arrived, Father Bob and his wife, Mary Lou, welcomed us like family. They sponsored us for Cursillo, an experience that transformed our faith and eventually led us to DeColores, Emmaus Walk, Via de Cristo, Chrysalis, and the Great Banquet. Those ministries enriched our spiritual lives in ways we could never have imagined.
Years later, when my mother died, the inheritance that remained passed to my sister, Georganna, and me. Because Georganna was living in a nursing home and receiving Medicaid, the attorneys advised her to decline her share.
Unsure how best to use the money, we contacted Bishop Gafkjen. He immediately offered to visit us the next time he was in South Bend.
During our conversation, he spoke about mission congregations. Mission congregations need pastors, pastors need seminaries, and seminaries need support. Like children in a candy store, we wanted to help in every way we could.
From that conversation came the Gafkjen Endowment.
Looking back over my life, I see countless moments that seemed like simple coincidences at the time. Yet each one opened a door that I never could have opened myself.
That is how I understand God Winks.
God makes things happen that we cannot make happen ourselves. They are events we cannot explain and never see coming.
They may look like coincidences, but they are really God-incidents—gentle reminders that God is quietly at work, guiding our lives one unexpected step at a time.
