Quingdao Take 2

So, we hit up Qingdao for the second time this weekend. Qingdao, which I have probably referenced before, is a little - and little is a relative term here in China - coastal city about an hour outside of Pooptown. 

Now, here's what I know about Qingdao. There is a whole crapload of cool stuff hidden all up in and around it. I also know that it's pretty legendary for its alcohol, which is hardly surprising seeing as it used to be a German port. GERMANS KNOW BEER. (And lederhosen. I gotta get me some of that. That's just pure class.) We've been to Qingdao once before, for the weekend. In that weekend, and this past Saturday, I haven't seen even a twenty-fourth of what Qingdao has to offer. Qingdao is amazing because it feels so unlike anywhere else in China. In fact, it doesn't feel like anywhere in China at all. It's almost European. (I say this like I'd know? Eh. Welp. Someday, Europe. I'm coming for you.) I'd love to spend a week there, or a month, or even a year. It's gorgeous. And it's by the sea. Um. HI. Enchanting.

Our first go at Qingdao really came out of desperation after our apartment had been without running water for four days. Listen. I can go without a shower for a long, long time, but I was noticeably pungent. And that is saying something in China. Marissa, on the other hand, is some kind of walking miracle. Kid could go two weeks without a shower and still look like a supermodel. I don't know. It's every kind of incredible, is what I'm getting at. Also, what I'm trying to say is, we didn't see a whole ton of Qingdao that first trip outside of our hostel shower. Heaven bless running water. It's pure luxury.

This past trip to Qingdao came on an almost-last-second whim. It involved miserable winds, pouring rain, plans gone wrong, and delayed trains - as so many of my best trips here do. But it also involved inappropriate humor, inside jokes, group snuggles, funny people on the street, adorable children, amazing blue sky above me, and the soul-stirring inhale and exhale of the ocean kissing at the edge of every moment I enjoyed there.

More than anything, though, Qingdao involved heavy consideration on the deep power of coincidence, or rather, the complete and total lack thereof.  Emma Bull, kind of a wild child of a writer - big into sci-fi and urban fantasy - once wrote something that has really struck a chord with me here. She said, "Coincidence is the word we use when we can't see the levers and pulleys."

China has been the most amazing, amazing opportunity to daily have the curtain drawn back, to see the levers and pulleys. Every single day, I am blessed by a coincidence that comes exactly in the way I need, at exactly the time I need. A note from a student, a smile from a stranger, an email from home with words that answer my prayers - when the sender had no idea what I was praying about. Looking back on this blog, with my time here half gone, I regret so much that I haven't recorded all the daily, beautiful coincidences I have encountered. I'll definitely need to share them, which probably means that my heart will be walking China long after my feet have ceased. So DEAL WITH IT. You're never going to stop hearing about this place. I am forever changed, and nowhere near finished living and loving these daily coincidences.

Qingdao was no exception to this pattern. I saw the levers and pulleys in deepened and renewed friendships, in buses we caught or in sights that we saw. I saw them in conversations on the train - in sharing some of the most tender parts of myself and being heard by a best friend, and being blessed by the complete happenstance of her unknowing, yet perfectly-guided words. I saw coincidence in running into the one Chinese man in millions who had heard of Mormons, knew Mormons, and was considering graduate school in Utah, particularly at BYU.

The thing I love the most about seeing the levers and pulleys, is that the word coincidence truly does fall away. It becomes useless. What I have learned most about my Heavenly Father, is that He is in every little thing. Every last thing. It all matters to Him. The small things have eternal purpose, and what you say and do, what you don't say, and what you don't do, it all matters. To Him and to others. We have daily opportunities, if we live worthily, to be the vessel for coincidence - to be there at the right time, to change someone's day, to change someone's life. All we have to do is listen. He is ready to give.

And the more I see Him in all things daily, the more I see that when it comes to coincidence, the only startling thing, is that there is really no such thing at all. :)