Chance Encounter?

This is a short, but encouraging story of God doing good things.  I go to the gym on a regular basis and see a lot of the same people every night.  There is sort of a communal feeling with really no interaction at all outside of the chin nods and the occasional fist bumps.  Sometimes I workout with my friend Adrian who is a strong Christian and we have gotten to enjoy times of prayer together as well as doing business together, but for the most part I put on my headphones and do my work alone.  About a month ago I saw a new guy, let’s call him Ed, who appeared to be trying to figure out settings on one of the machines, so when we made eye contact, I gave him the chin nod and the s’up greeting.  I saw him again the next night and the next, and I started to get this strange feeling like I needed to talk to him.

I went over and grabbed a treadmill next to him and figured I would just stop when he stopped.  As we stopped and started small talk, I said “you’re doing good, keep it up.”  He said “thanks” and introduced himself.  He told me about his weight loss goals which opened the door to tell him about my weight loss experience.  So we began speaking, mostly about nutrition and workouts.  I emailed him some information on nutrition and weight loss.  I had taken nutrition classes at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles for over a year where I learned about proteins, fats, sugars, metabolism, reading food labels, emotional eating, you name it, we covered it.  As I began to share with Ed and earn his trust, he decides to tell me that he is really struggling with his divorce and how his weight gain was largely a result of how he coped with it.

During prayer that evening, it was very apparent to me that God was going to use my experience for good.  I have always clung to Romans 8:28 that tells us that “God causes all things to work together for good, for those that love God.”  I have thought about that verse a lot the last few years as I have wondered what good can come from my experience, will I have a chance to be a husband again? will I ever be a dad? will I ever own another company? can I get back to the level of fitness and health I use to know?  While answers to those questions about me remain unanswered, I did learn that others are going to benefit from what I learned.

As Ed and I have talked, I have been able to share with him my journey that began in a very similar way.  A little background for clarity:  I was divorced earlier this year, but the dissolution of my marriage began in 2006.  I struggled for several years because I strongly believe that God prefers forgiveness to divorce, so while my mind battled over forgiveness, divorce, guilt, humiliation and blaming myself, I indulged in comfort food.  When I think about those years, I still frown on the way I handled it.  I was so fearful of divorce that we never did the things necessary to see if true reconciliation was possible.

In sharing my experience with Ed, I have tried to emphasize how God has been at the center of my healing and my ability to forgive, heal, have peace and even experience joy has all been grounded in my faith that God has good plans for me, to give me a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).  So while I firmly believe that is true for me, I pray that it is also true for Ed.  So did God arrange this meeting?  On Friday afternoon, I received an email from Ed asking me to help him with his meals, so we are going to go shopping to show him what I eat.  More importantly, the second part of his email thrilled me, he said he could not workout Friday night because he decided to go check out a bible study at a church near his house.  I think it is safe to say that God is doing good things!