The coincidence did not escape me.

I’m a connections kind of person. A deeper meaning kind of gal.

I grew up with the concept of Hashgacha Pratis (literally translated to divine providence,) which means that nothing is coincidental or accidental, everything happens for a reason. Every moment, every leaf, and every wrong turn has its purpose and place in the grand scheme of things.

That concept has always given me so much comfort, and more than that, it gives life an air of optimism and mystery.

Life is full of mystery. Honestly, every moment is a mystery, we never know what the next moment will bring.

I like to be in control. I avoid depending on people as much as possible, I like to get things done on my own, I like being the master of my own destiny.

So you can see how allowing G-d to be in control can be a little difficult for me.

Remembering that ultimately, I have no control over what happens in my life is something I constantly struggle with.

But at the same time, I have this deep, deep understanding that G-d really is always in control.

Hence, the connections.

When the subway takes too long at a stop, or I randomly choose a different route to walk, or something happens which forces me to do something I wasn’t planning on doing – that’s when I know G-d is in control.

I know that there is a reason my life is taking this path. It is not random or accidental.

But a moment later…when the reason behind what happened is not revealed to me, my spirits begin to plummet.

See, I’m happy for G-d to move around the pieces in a way that I don’t understand. But when even afterward I still don’t get to see the full picture, I feel a little cheated. When I think the signs that I am seeing are so clear, but then everything they were pointing to falls apart, and I realize how little I know, and how little what I think actually matters to the plan.

See, when I realized that it was the 33rd day of the omer when I would be writing my 33rd blog post, my brain went scrambling for reasons, connections.

I came up with a few.

The 49 days of the omer are meant to be a time of working on oneself, going through the various good attributes we have, and sharpening them.

For 33 weeks, I have been working hard at writing blog posts, each week focusing on something else in my life and my personality. It has forced me to look at myself honestly, and open up.

On the 33rd day of the omer, we have been looking at our attributes for 33 days already. We have been refining ourselves, trying harder, taking notice of what can be done better.

There was no specific reason I chose to begin writing weekly blog posts 33 weeks ago, I had no idea that it would line up this way. Which means – there’s got to be a connection, right?

It’s a little bit far-fetched, I know.

Pretty much everyone I know would chalk this up to a very random coincidence because honestly, it doesn’t really matter.

But it gives me joy to connect the dots. To see the reasoning behind things. To feel like I am part of a plan, to perhaps see the faint outlines of G-ds pen.

Maybe I’m too uptight. Maybe I need to let go a little bit, to learn how to depend on others, and most of all, to learn how to depend on G-d. Maybe to survive through life, one just has to be laid back, and not try so hard to understand everything that happens around us.

But that doesn’t feel right to me. It doesn’t seem like the way I want to live. I’d rather continue to thank G-d when the little things go right, and notice Him in every part of my day, than to loosen up and forget that He’s there.

It’s a difficult balance to find. Like with everything in life, there are pros and cons to every path we take.

There is one thing I know for sure – everything happens for a reason. Everything is connected, and everything has a purpose. The dots are there. But for whatever reason, G-d has chosen to not show me which dots connect to which. He has chosen to not reveal the why’s behind each choice He makes, which has made for some very anger filled prayers on my part.

It’s nice when we get it, but it’s not important for us to get it. The important part for me is to realize that there is a reason – and that’s all.

I will never stop hoping that G-d reveals His plan a little more, that He’ll let me peek, that one day soon He’ll let me understand why I take those wrong turns.

But until then, I will do my very best to unclench my fists a little bit, to trust that He can handle it, that He has heard my prayers and that despite the fact that things seem very scattered at the moment, He has a way of changing things in a moment.