God has a bigger plan or I'm really lucky??

This is a constant question that floats around in my head. Take what I'm about to say with a slice of humble pie, but I feel like my life fits perfectly into place. Things happen that I sometimes don't understand but upon closer inspection, or the passing of time, I find that they fit perfectly. Now, I am unsure what the purpose of this is. Is it God's divine intervention? Am I really that lucky? Or, do I have a desire to find meaningful connections in everything so I create this in my head? I like to think it is God's plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11). Here is a prime example:

This past Spring semester, I took my first Ph.D. level statistics course. I loved it. Clearly. I'm a math person who likes to write. Anywho, a few weeks ago, I received an email from the research center at TAMU asking me if I would like to work some during the summer. Of course I jumped at the opportunity. I would get to work on federally funded projects while improving on my research skills. I was recommended for this position (along with some other students) based on my performance in my statistics course.

This information is important. Now, of equal importance is my tumultuous year. This past year, I taught 8th grade Language Arts. I taught in a time that was full of change and hardship. Along with teaching a new grade - at the Special Education level and Pre-AP, I was tasked with helping to write new curriculum for the district that fused together new TEKS, a new state assessment and College and Career Readiness Standards (which are a National initiative). Got that? It was rough and made me crazy. I had never heard of these College and Career Readiness Standards and became very familiar with them, along with the TEKS and the new STAAR. Along with curriculum writing and implementation.

Hopefully that is all clear as it lends itself to the point of my post. Now, in all of this, I was stressed, uptight, overwhelmed and going crazy! I thought constantly, "Why is this happening?", "why am I doing this?" and "How is this going to be applicable in my future?" My time is stretched so thin as is that I don't like to spend time on things that won't help me in the future or don't have purpose. All year, I felt like I couldn't give my students the best education possible because of the stress all of this laid upon me. However, at this point, I have the 8th grade Language Arts TEKS memorized, I know the College and Career Readiness Standards and I know how to write STAAR style questions without even blinking an eye.

So - Why is this important? Today, I had my first meeting with the research center to learn about the types of projects we will be working on. I was assigned to two projects - both dealing with College and Career Readiness Standards! The directors of the center had no idea that I was well-versed in this information. How convenient lucky blessed whatever! Crazy, right?

I take from this that God put me through an exhausting year to teach me these standards so that I could help with this project and gain valuable experience which I'm sure will help further my professional career as a researcher. So, here is the question - is this part of God's perfect plan? am I luck? or am I fabricating that these pieces fit together? Again, I choose to believe this is God's plan for me as this is not the first, and I'm sure not the last, time that my life fits perfectly into place.

-Tracey