June 9th

It was around 7:30ish Monday night when I was wishing it could be Tuesday (June 9th) so I could read Shannon Hale's new book The Actor and the Housewife. Then the thought came to me...it probably got shelved early. I went down to Barnes & Noble and there it was sitting on the shelf, it was a beautiful sight to behold. I left the store with a spring in my step, and got about halfway through the book that night.

The next morning while checking my google reader (which is one of my favorite things, you can google it) I saw that it was Matt Bellamy's 31st birthday, the lead singer/guitar/piano player for the band Muse. That is when I noticed the date June 9th...and thought...hmmm why is that date important? It took me a moment to remember oh yeah that is the day I came home from my mission back in 2004 FIVE years ago.

As I said I have been sick and that morning while at work I had a coughing attack while on the phone I might add. I some how got off the phone with out throwing up and started breathing again. Needless to say I ended up going home around noon. I really did try and sleep but who can sleep when there are books to read.

In the book the main character Becky gets an email from someone who mentions getting Nielsen's Frozen Custard. Becky then mentions how good Nielsen's Frozen Custard really is. Pre-mission my friends and I spent a lot of good times at Nielsen's Frozen Custard (the one in Mesa). While on my mission my companion and I were at dinner and the father had made us sundae's for dessert. That got us talking about ice cream I mentioned how much I missed Nielsen's Frozen Custard. The mother than told me there was one just down the street and that they started in Utah her roommate from college was married to the owner of the chain. It ended up that just down the street was actually just outside our mission boundaries so another day the mother and daughter went and got us Nielsen's, how sweet were they.

Later in the book there is a boy named Bellamy who is associated with an Italian rock star. This character is about as minor as they come so no worries no spoilers in mentioning him. But come on Bellamy as in Matt Bellamy who is not Italian but he does live there. I have a feeling Stephenie Meyer had something to do with it. Does anyone else think it is crazy that these three very separate things that all fell on a single date all kind of merged into one. Well I thought it was funny and awesome and to celebrate I got some Nielsen's frozen custard and watched a couple songs off my Haarp (Muse) DVD.

Last night I kept thinking I should tell Shannon about the book magic and how much I loved the book so I wrote this really long email explaining what I explained to you and wrote my feeling on the book. I almost did not send it I mean like she has time to read my email and she will probably think I am crazy anyway. But I had spent so much time writing it I did not want it to be wasted so I sent it with out another thought. I was not expecting a response and definitely not a fast one. So can you imagine my surprise when I opened my email this morning to see an email from her. I just kind of stared at it. This is her email in it's entirety...

Ha! Given the whole coincidence/serendipity theme in the book, this is especially fun. I usually don't see emails for some time, but glad I happened to read this today. I needed your happy thoughts. You're a doll.
sh.

The point I would like to make with this post is, I know that God knows us and is very involved in our lives and makes small unimportant things happen just so we know he is there. Some people call it coincidence, serendipity, kismet or fate. I am not sure why we are scared to give credit where credit is due, I guess it is because we are scared people will think we are crazy. I am thankful for Shannon's book and her courage to acknowledge Gods hand even in fiction.