This is a slightly different Fun Friday topic, but it’s what’s on my mind, so it’s what you’re getting!

For those of you who kept up with the comments on Tuesday’s post, you know that a heated discussion about whether or not my claim to never have been asked out was a cop-out for why I’ve never dated/never been kissed, and my response detailing all the ways in which I have tried to make sure I was giving men every opportunity for it to happen. (But until I learn to use the telepathy portion of my brain to implant thoughts into a man’s mind, I can’t make a man ask me out, no matter how many I know nor how much time I spend with them—just like I couldn’t make them say yes back in my teens and twenties when I tried to be the initiator.)

But it got me thinking about how there are times when things do come our way in unexpected ways, at unexpected times.

Wednesday, I received an e-mail from someone who’s going to be in Nashville at the end of the month and wanted recommendations for restaurants in downtown. I sent her a list, and told her that if she wanted company, I’d be happy to meet her for lunch one day while she’s here. So even though I wasn’t “out there” specifically looking for someone to have lunch with that weekend, I now have plans to get together with someone and make a new connection.

Then yesterday afternoon, the phone rang—which is a highly unusual occurrence in my house—with a number I didn’t recognize. Well, it was the manager of the C.J. Banks clothing store down at the Cool Springs Mall—the store where I did my first book signing back in March, the store where I drop in occasionally just to keep the contact going—including going by twice to take in a copy of Menu when those came and a copy of RH a couple of weeks later. Well, they’re having a big sale Wednesday (I assume it’s a back-to-school thing) and want me to come in and do a book signing. I thought I had something going on that evening, so I told her I’d have to check (yet once again, the reason why I need to get back to keeping to-do lists!). But I discovered that whatever I thought I had going was just a figment of my imagination. So I’ve already e-mailed my publishers to see if they can get some promo materials sent out to the store by Wednesday, and I’m going to try to go by the store tomorrow to confirm, in person, that I will do the book signing.

I am a firm believer in going after what I want—as long as I’m confident that’s the direction God is pointing me (because I know only too well the consequences of going after something that isn’t what He’d planned for me). My motto is that good things come to those who wait, but those who are willing to work for it receive the best things.

In These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder relates how, when a new girl (Florence) came to school, she invited her to sit with her and they became friends. Later, after Laura had already taught a couple of terms (six- to eight-week terms) of school, she once again takes the annual teacher’s examination. When Laura receives her new teacher’s certificate, she says, “Now if I can only have the good luck to get the right school.”

Caroline and Charles Ingalls

“A body makes his own luck, be it good or bad,” Ma placidly said. “I have no doubt you will get as good as you deserve.”

Laura wracks her brain to try to figure out how to make good luck for herself so she can get a good-paying school. When she goes to school the next day—she, herself, is still a student at this time—Florence comes to her and asks her if she received her certificate. Laura says she did.

“I didn’t get any, so I can’t teach our school,” Florence said soberly, “but this is what I want to tell you: You tried to help me, and I would rather you taught our [small, country] school than anyone else. If you want it, my father says you may have it. It is a three months’ school, beginning the first of April…”

Laura could hardly get the breath to answer, “Oh, yes! I do want it. . . . Thank you, Florence, so much.”

“Well, you have always been so nice to me, I am glad of a chance to pay some of it back,” Florence told her.

Laura remembered what Ma had said about luck, and she thought to herself: “I believe we make most of our luck without intending to.”

If you’ve been around the blog awhile, you know that I harp on about networking quite a lot (if you’ve never read through them, read the two series I did on networking). Networking boils down to us making our own luck. Even the most innocent of contacts with someone can create opportunities we never even dreamed of. I never knew Chip MacGregor would be my agent when I first started getting to know him three years before I ever submitted anything to him. I didn’t know Rebecca Germany would give me my first book contract when I started getting to know her six years before then.

While the “putting myself out there” didn’t work with dating/relationships, it has definitely produced quite a bit of fruit for me on the professional level. I put myself out there and went back to school (after dropping out at age 21) to do what I could to chase my dream of working in the publishing industry—and not only did I get a full-time job as an editor at a publishing house, I got published. But that job and those book contracts weren’t just going to fall into my lap. As I’ve already mentioned, without even knowing how they’d become “lucky” for me, I’d already started developing relationships with the people who’d make my publishing dream happen. (The job I got because I applied for it and went through a rigorous interview process that took almost two months.)

I have the kind of mind that allows me to look back over things that have happened to me in the past and make connections and see how things happened and ended up working to bring about some blessing—anticipated and hoped-for or totally unexpected—whether it was preparing me for a certain job (or a certain lack of a certain job) or preparing me to become a published author. And while there are definitely times when unexpected blessings came my way, which I can only attribute to the grace of God, most of the time, it’s because I was working, I was following the path that God was putting before me—a lot of times, it was a lot like driving on a winding road through a forest at night with only one headlight working. But in the morning, when I look back at it from the mountain top, I can see the entire road clearly—with all of its hairpin turns and twists and potholes and sheer dropoffs. And yes, even though there were times that got rough or times when I didn’t want to go on—or even wanted to turn around and go back—I stuck with it. And the blessing at the end of the journey—or the “luck” that I made—makes me that much more willing to do it the next time.

What about you? Do you have any experiences with what Ma Ingalls called making your own luck?