Planned mistakes

Happy accidents, making lemonade out of lemons, there's lots of ways to describe something we didn't intend to happen that did happen & ended up being pretty good.
Yesterday at church our pastor was talking of how sometimes we don't want to do something asked of us but when we do it ends up being something that helps us understand something. Okay, maybe you had to be there. But it reminded me of a time about nine years ago, when I was to attend an Al Anon meeting. I had been in a relationship with an alcoholic for quite a few years before the bottom dropped out, I could see no light at the end, & chose to leave the relationship. It was a tough time, & it was suggested that to help in my healing, I should attend an Al-Anon meeting to share with others who had endured similar situations. As I sat down, I was handed a few brochures from which I randomly chose one to look through. The first words that met my eyes were how an alcoholic always blames others, usually the spouse, for everything wrong in their lives. Had they actually printed this knowing what I had been through? The release of emotion...& tears, flooded out as I read on. One of the other attendees came to see if they could help as I blubbered embarrassedly away. Then I found out, I had ended up at the AA meeting, not the Al-Anon meeting. Here was a room full of people who had gone through what I had, but from the other side. They welcomed me to stay, saying they wanted to hear more about how the whole ordeal had made me feel. We shared & cried, & not only did I come away with a weight lifted & a clearer understanding of the disease, but maybe I had helped those who had hurt loved ones with their disease, to understand from a more distanced perspective, just how devastating their actions were to those loved ones.
I wonder now, had I actually accidentally happened on the wrong meeting, or was a greater Force responsible for placing me in the presence of others like the one who had hurt me so completely.
With healing comes understanding, & the flip side is true also. A glance back as we move forward helps to place adverse happenings where they should be, far enough away where we won't dwell on them, but close enough to remind us of what we have learned.