The Right Place at The Right Time or is Called Fate

by Shannon Streno on Friday, July 1, 2011 at 6:24am

I have a very interesting story of my life to tell you about, I am a collector of books I collect every book I can find about the Bible. I go to yard sales the Good Will and New and used book stores, well one day I was miles away from my home working and out of the corner of my eye I saw this tiny little used book store so I stopped in and I search the store and found this really old worn out book from the 1950′s it was a red soft covered little book the tiltle read The Gospel of John. I thought neat I will buy this, so I bought the book and as years went on I would carry this book to work with me and read it often ,

Years and years later I open the very front of the book and I found a place were a person could right their name on a line and put in the Date on the very Day that That person Became a Believer in Jesus Christ .

Well when I read the hand written Name that was written in 1953 I hit the floor it was my Grand Mother Ruth She wrote her name in it. At the time I read this it was the year 2001 , so 47 years later I have a book that was lost and it belong to my Grand Mother at one point in time .

Ok heres the Kicker My grand mother Ruth has been dead for 20 years and I found the little book of John’s Gospel three towns away in a hard to find Little used book store Amazing !!

Wait it gets better. I have been reading this book for years and never open the cover I never really fully possessed the book I never really owned it because I did not read it cover to cover if you know what I mean.

My entire family never new that My Grand Mother Ruth was a Christian we have always wondered and now we know my whole family rejoiced when they found out that when we get to Heaven we will be with Grandma Ruth. Even though she was in Heaven the seed she planted many years earlier even after her death was still being watered from a little Red worn out book that she took the time to write her testimony in and proclaim she Believed In Jesus . Praise Jesus !! No one knows how many other people read the book and put their Faith in Jesus.

So you never know when you might be in the right place at the right time. I would say that it was the Lords will that led me to that little used book store at that very day to buy My Grandmothers book.

This story takes place in Spring Valley, NY in 1999. I’ve been involved with this girl on and off since Junior High School. She’s half black/Puertorican, 5’2, long black hair, with a caramel complexion and her name is Arianny Delahoz. Once we graduated Junior High School we grew further apart leading us to date other people. That’s when I met Lina Orellana from Equator. Lina and I met through a mutual friend and immediately we had this connection that was indestructible. I was Lina’s first in every which way possible making her so called love for me influential. Arianny heard Lina and I was dating and took actions of her own. She began dressing lady like which attracted my attention. After school one day I made a drastic decision that would change my life forever.

I left school with Arianny and from a distance Lina saw us leave together.

Without saying goodbye or telling LIna I was done with our relationship, I began dating Arianny again. Years went by and Arianny gave birth to my beautiful son Shawn Charles Brown. A few years after my son was born, Arianny and I had our differences. We ended our relationship for good, due to the fact she cheated on me. Instantly I assumed that was karma for not ending my relationship with Lina the appropriate way.

Ten years later I’ve always wondered how things would be if I stayed with Lina. Something strange happened one day and I was shocked. I bumped into Lina in Manhattan, NY. We talked, laughed, and shared our feelings about the past. Apologies were thrown in every direction from my end and she forgave me. After my previous relationship that ended in a disaster, I met another female from Israeli. Her name is Samantha Haghnazari and she’s 5’5, long black hair, tan complexion and her body is amazing. Sam was completely different than any other female I’ve ever dated, but seeing Lina again made me feel as I did when we first met back in high school. Her and I began being intimate while I was currently dating Sam. I felt guilty and brushed Lina off just like I did in High school. We ended our little fling and then a few years later Sam and I broke up. Lina and I bumped into each other again but now she was involved with someone. She began being intimate with me while she had a boy friend. Lina wanted me to be with me exclusively, but I couldn’t because I still had feelings for Sam. Sam and I eventually got back together, but Lina and I was still sleeping with each other. At this point I have a girl friend and Lina has a boyfriend. We realized no matter what happened between us in the past we always found each other and ended up sleeping with each other. We ended our relationships and now she and I are together as it should’ve been back in 1999.

I spent one year going out on blind dates in order to find The One. I was 35, recently out of a broken engagement, and ready to get married. I spent one lugubrious year slogging thru date after date, and finally, I met the guy. Or so I thought…

Date 77 was with a linguistics professor who had quite an impressive resume. Solomon was so inviting and inclusive and just … warm. It was so good to be in his presence and surrounded by his sexiness. I was like a walking grilled-cheese sandwich, all gooey and soft. I imagined that lying in his arms would be like resting in a jar of marshmallow crème.

His cell phone rang. Thirty seconds later, he was gone. An emergency took him away. Fate dragged him off. I stood there in my black boots with the rain misting softly on my hair, and almost started to cry, yet I was overcome with the feeling that I would never again have to add to my blind dating list that was only growing out to nowhere. I decided to celebrate with a taco and a beer.

But here’s the catch: I never saw Solomon again. When leaving the restaurant, I heard a voice say, “Call Michael Potts.” I quickly turned around to see if someone I knew was behind me playing a joke on me, but there was no one there. But I’d heard the voice. I had heard my mother’s voice before, it’s just hard to recognize when it speaks to me.

Michael Potts was a younger guy who I currently worked with in the funeral industry. More specifically, he worked for my company, and I had met him a month or so earlier in the lobby of a funeral home while we both were presiding over a funeral service. I didn’t like him when we met. He became real annoying and never would get the hint that I just wasn’t that into him!

So here I was, standing outside my favorite taqueria, hearing a voice that told me to call some guy who I could swear that I would never call in a million years. But I am a woman of faith, so in about a minute I called, he answered, and couldn’t believe I was really phoning him. Yeah, neither could I.

We talked all night. It was funny, but he said everything I wanted to hear, and so sweetly and genuinely. I brushed him off after one conversation, and if fate hadn’t intervened, who knows how my future dates would have played out.

About three weeks into dating he said, “I am not the marrying kind. I’ve never wanted to get married before, but I’ll tell you something. If our relationship is this good in a year from now, I am asking you to marry me.”

One year later we were married, and are now parents to a beautiful baby girl.

This account of random meetings in a car was written by Brad Feld and appeared in his blog.

I tried an experiment last week when I was in Seattle. I did two of my “random meetings” in cars between things.

I had a full day (a run with TA McCann (the CEO of Gist), the Gist board meeting, and then the Impinj board meeting. I had to catch a flight home to Denver at 5pm because I had a meeting first thing in the morning with one of our investors. So – I didn’t really have any slack time in my schedule.

TA had connected with me David Conrad who runs Design Commission and did some of the early design work for Gist. This intro was made and the meeting was planned a while ago. I shuffled the meeting around at the last minute so that it was sandwiched between the Gist and the Impinj board meetings.

After I tweeted that I was heading to Seattle, I received an email from Marcelo Calbucci who is the publisher of the Seattle 2.0 blog and recently put on the Seattle 2.0 Awards. Marcelo asked to see if I had 15 minutes to talk about a couple of things.

Now – I hate to drive. I’m a shitty driver so when I travel I take cabs or have a driver take me around. My assistant Kelly plus Taxi Magic on my iPhone take care of me so I don’t really worry about it too much. So – I thought I’d try something different. I asked Kelly to see if David would be willing to drive me from Gist to Impinj and if Marcelo would be willing to drive me from Impinj to the airport. In exchange, they’d have me captive in their car for a meeting for however long the drive took.

Both agreed. I got where I was going safely, we ended up having a face to face meeting (that otherwise probably wouldn’t have hapened), and we each have a memorable shared experience. Plus – I hope I was able to be a little helpful to them. Finally, I didn’t spend any money on a car service and – as a special bonus – David had a Prius so we get to feel like we were actually being somewhat energy efficient

I thought this experiment was a success and I’ll definitely try it again. Pay attention to my tweets and/or TripIt account for where I’m heading – if you want to give a “Random Ride” just holler. And hats off to both of these guys for being great entrepreneurs and just “making it happen” when given the chance, no matter how random it might seem.

In 1995, I bought my first computer and AOL was all the rage at the time.
I don’t care what anybody says, but when you have an access to internet for the first time, you go to Chat Room to check it out.
So I did and soon I met this guy, Jack. He was to come see his friend in So.Cal in a few days , so we decided to double date for not risking meeting some serial killer. We didn’t exchange phone numbers, either.
His flight got delayed and he had no way to contact me. He called his best friend, Montie, to email me that we had to reschedule.
I responded to this email with my number, Montie called and the rest is history. Jack was our best man at the wedding which took place at his parents’ house.
Jack himself married to Jill on November 1st, 2003, which is when I gave a birth to our son, Monty, who came 3 weeks early.