I've been mulling the idea thinking through various angles of destiny and wondering what it all means. Do I believe? Have I experienced it, and if so where? Does it usually involve persons, or are events without people part of destiny? Who's in control of destiny?

What does the term mean? Synonyms suggest: fate, fortune, lot, luck, providence, chance, a predetermined course of events, something decreed beforehand, or something dedicated to us in advance, even divine intervention.

I like to think that if there is a destiny that God is in control of it. If this were so, then I'd have to accept that everything happens for a reason. If this is true, then some of the recent events in my life have a meaning and a purpose.

If there is a destiny, it's no mistake that my friend Jayne called and asked me to be involved in her writers group. It's no mistake that because of that writer's group, I had an exclusive lunch with an author writing under a pen name, who has published five books, two romances and three thrillers.

If destiny is at work in my life then it's no mistake that I attended a workshop given by the same author writing under a pen name, and every time I meet with her I hear the same message that mass market is the way to publish. Then I find out that mass market is where Stephen King began. Perhaps it's no mistake that I came across a few web sites mentioning Donald Maass and his agency in New York and his promotion of authors to the mass market trade. Will the end result of these chance meetings prove destiny true or false?

Who can say what destiny is and what it's not. Is all life experience part of destiny? Does destiny move in and out of one's life like the changing seasons choosing to bless one day with sunshine and another with gray skies and storms?

If all the above is destiny resulting in a final culmination of positive outcome, then what of my meeting with the rep for the west coast publishers who said, "We're looking for new fiction authors." Was that destiny so I could get my book published? Or will it be destiny so I can receive another rejection in the mail? We tend to think of destiny as being positive, but maybe not.

The problem with assuming that all the above events are destiny is that we as humans tend to draw certain conclusion about the events. The problem with conclusions is that not all of them are accurate, true, or come about as we imagine. I say, destiny can only be concluded after the event and not determined before the event.

What is destiny? Is it the good and not the bad? Consider the mad cow disease, and Oprah's show, and the angry Texans, and the long court case, the hiring of Phil McGraw, and all that occurred. Negative events for the most part, but look at the good that came of it. A long-term close friendship between Phil and Oprah, and a successful television show for Phil, which benefits many. Do you think he calls that destiny?

When I asked people about destiny they generally responded in terms of their love life. Many imagine destiny as God, or fate, or something of divine chance, placing a person in our path who turns out to be "The One" for us. Three times my life path crossed my husband's path. The first time he was married, I was single. He used to run the track at the YMCA on College Street in Toronto, while I was in the same building at the same time swimming. We never met.

The second time our paths crossed we were both divorced. We had remained faithful in our marriages but our partners didn't. At the second meeting my husband had a long time girlfriend. We were introduced and I was momentarily attracted to him. Still the ever faithful, one girl guy, never gave me a second look. We talked for less than a minute as most of his attention went to the conversation with our mutual friend.

Two years later, I saw him at a church and I reintroduced myself. We shook hands, talked, and have not stopped talking since. Seven weeks after that fateful day of meeting and reintroduction, we married. Is that destiny? Was any of it destiny? Was all of it destiny?