A Million Things Had to Happen

September 13, 2026

Recently, I was watching a show when one of the characters said something that stayed with me. After experiencing an unimaginable loss, he reflected on how a million things had to happen for that one moment in his life to occur.

A million things.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that.

How many things had to happen for me to be sitting where I am today? How many decisions had to be made? How many people had to be born? How many families had to move? How many prayers had to be prayed? How many seemingly insignificant introductions had to happen? How many things completely outside of my control had to align for certain people to enter my life at exactly the time they did?

The more I thought about it, the more I thought about God.

I believe God is sovereign. I believe He is the master orchestrator. But sometimes I think we experience His sovereignty only from the tiny perspective of the moment we are standing in. We see the introduction. God sees everything that had to happen before two people could ever meet. We see the answered prayer. God sees the decades that came before we even knew what to ask for.

I started thinking about my mentor, Tom.

Before I ever knew him, there was already an entire story unfolding. His parents were immigrants from Vietnam. They had eight children—five sons and three daughters—and Tom was number six. When I first heard him talk about his family, something about his story immediately felt familiar to me. There was this strange excitement in me, like, I think I know this person. I think we know each other. I remember thinking and telling him that he could be my big brother.

A couple of years later, our lives would intersect in a way I could not have anticipated from our first brief introduction. His journey toward financial freedom, his mother’s request that he help others achieve it too, my own journey into real estate and leadership, and the things my husband and I had been praying for all existed separately before they eventually converged.

When I look at those relationships today, I can see only the small portion that belongs to me. But when I trace them backward, I see generations, decisions, prayers and circumstances that I had absolutely nothing to do with.

A million things.

And lately, looking backward has brought me to my mom.

I’ve been missing her deeply.

A few days ago, I dreamed about her. The dream began, interestingly enough, with real estate. I was looking at Google Earth and noticed a fascinating dome-shaped house sitting on a tiny peninsula facing the sea. I zoomed in to look at it and then began exploring the surrounding land. There was development happening nearby, and before long, as dreams do, I wasn’t looking at the construction site anymore. I was standing in it.

A Realtor I somehow knew was managing the site and came out to meet me. We walked and talked about real estate and investments. Eventually she asked me how the funeral had gone.

I didn’t initially remember whose funeral she meant.

Later, as we sat near the edge of the construction site, her teammate brought us a newspaper. There was a black-and-white photograph of a group of Hmong women and one of them looked like my mom. I wasn’t sure and doubted it. Then she turned the page and there was another photograph of two women.

My mom was on the right.

She was smiling.

At first I thought, That looks like my mom.

I searched the page for a caption. I wanted something to verify what I already knew. I couldn’t find it.

And finally I just said, “This is my mom.”

I took the newspaper, folded it so I could see her picture, pressed it against my chest, hunched over and cried.

I cried harder and harder until I woke up in my bed crying.

I don’t know that the dream needs an interpretation. I am simply grateful that I got to see my mother’s face, even if it was only a photograph in a dream.

But I can’t ignore the setting.

I was looking at land. Development. Construction. Investments. Things being built.

And at the end of the construction site, I found my mother.

Maybe that is why this season has me thinking so much about what came before me and what I am building now.

My mother passed away in May 2025. That year held so much. Earlier in the year, I traveled to be with my younger sister after her breast surgery. After my mother passed, I returned and had time to sit on the side of her bed, go through some of her belongings, and simply be in the space where she had lived. Then I returned again with my family for her funeral and our family gathering.

I have been thinking about that year differently lately.

There was so much grief. But there was also so much formation.

And when I ask myself what my mother gave me that prepared me for the woman I am becoming, one of the first answers that comes to me is something completely intangible:

Her prayers.

There is a blessing in my culture “Noj qab, nyob zoo” which translated literally, means, “Eat well, live well.”

I heard language like this in my mother’s prayers. She prayed it over people. She prayed for us to “ua tuabneeg txi txaj” to succeed and to live well.

But “eat well, live well” means more to me than simply having enough food or making enough money. It represents a kind of wholeness. May you have enough. May you be healthy. May you prosper. May you be respected, and may you live in a way worthy of respect. May you have wealth, but also character. May your life be good.

My mother prayed those kinds of blessings over her children.

I don’t know all of the dreams my mother had for herself. I don’t know everything she wanted to accomplish in her lifetime. The truth is that she didn’t have many of the role models and mentors that I have access to now.

But she gave me what she had.

She prayed.

She loved her friends deeply. Relationships mattered to her. She taught me something about being there for people—not necessarily by speaking every day or needing constant contact, but by being someone another person could call when they needed you.

A pillar.

A post.

Someone who remains.

And now I realize that I am carrying those things forward.

Maybe that is part of what legacy actually is.

We sometimes talk about generational legacy as though each generation begins from scratch and tries to leave behind more than it received. But I’m beginning to see it differently.

My mother gave me what she had.

I receive what she gave me.

God has brought other people into my life who can give me things she could not give me because she had never received them herself.

And now my responsibility is to steward all of it.

When I lived in Mexico, I was blessed to witness a godly marriage through people who were parental figures to me. For the first time, I saw up close what a functional marriage could look like. That example blessed me deeply because it gave me something to hope for in marriage.

And I see that same kind of provision in other areas of our lives. God has brought people alongside my husband and me who can model things neither of us received before. They don’t replace the people who came before us. They add to what was already given.

That is what amazes me.

Sometimes I think we imagine that God begins answering a prayer when we start praying it.

What if He doesn’t?

What if some answers began decades before we ever knew we would need them?

Before I knew what I would need in this season, God was already forming people. Families were being formed. Children were being born. People were immigrating to new countries. Mothers were praying over their children. Careers were being built. Wealth was being created. Lessons were being learned. People were succeeding and failing and trying again.

And somewhere else, my mother was praying for me.

None of us could see how any of those stories would eventually intersect.

But God could.

We experience our lives chronologically.

God sees the whole thing.

And maybe the part that humbles me most is realizing that the orchestration doesn’t stop with me.

Right now, I am one of the million things.

The woman I am becoming will affect my daughters.

The marriage Fugie and I are building will become part of our children’s understanding of marriage. I want my daughters to know what it looks like to be a wife who loves her husband without losing herself—a woman who is loving, faithful, kind and caring, who is driven but still present. I want to be someone they can call when life becomes heavy. A post. A lighthouse. Someone who gives them strength when theirs feels insufficient.

And I want my sons to see what it means to be a good husband through their father. Fugie’s formation matters because our sons are watching him become. They are learning what kind of man it takes to love a wife, lead a family, receive correction, seek wisdom, grow, provide, serve and remain faithful.

We aren’t only building our lives.

We are building part of theirs.

There are things happening in our family right now that our children may not understand for another twenty years. There may be conversations happening today that eventually change something in one of our sons. There may be something I am learning about marriage today that one of my daughters remembers when she is struggling in her own.

There may be investments we’re making, mistakes we’re learning from, friendships we’re nurturing, habits we’re changing and prayers we’re praying that will become part of a future we will never completely see.

And suddenly, I understand my mother differently.

She prayed into a future she could not see.

I am living in that future now.

I am becoming a woman she prayed for, even though she isn’t physically here to see everything God is doing in me.

And maybe one day my children will stand somewhere I cannot go with them.

My daughters may become women I will not be here long enough to fully see. My sons may become husbands and fathers and face decisions I cannot make for them. Maybe some prayer I am praying today will meet them there.

Maybe my mother’s prayers are meeting me here.

So when I think about God’s sovereignty now, I don’t only think about the things He is doing in front of me.

I think about the million things.

The prayers prayed before I understood their importance. The families formed before ours ever met them. The relationships that seemed insignificant at first. The people who arrived at precisely the season when we were finally ready to receive what they carried. The things my mother gave me. The things others are adding. The things Fugie and I are learning to give our children.

I cannot see the whole story.

I don’t think I’m supposed to.

I am simply responsible for faithfully stewarding the part God has placed in my hands.

My mother prayed that we would noj qab nyob zoo hab ua tuabneeg txi txaj.

Now I pray it for the generation after me.

May they have enough.

May they be healthy.

May they prosper.

May they be people of character.

May they love well and be loved well.

May they recognize the people God sends into their lives.

May they steward what we leave them and add to it.

May they become part of God’s provision for someone else.

And someday, when they look backward at their own lives and wonder how they arrived where they are, perhaps they too will see traces of the million things God was orchestrating long before they knew what to ask for.