The Mysterious Wisdom of Nancy Drew

If favorite books are like good friends {and I think they are}, then Nancy Drew is one of my oldest and dearest friends.


I grew up reading about her adventures, along with her fellow girl-detectives -- Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames and the Bobbsey Twins -- but it was no coincidence that Nancy Drew was my favorite sleuth. 

Her stories had everything I loved. Two chipper chums in Bess and George to make mysteries fun, travel to enthralling locations, and plenty of dusty attics to explore, secret passageways to uncover and lost diaries to find. 

Besides Nancy was smart, capable and always stylish -- everything my pre-teen heart aspired to be.

And it was thanks to Nancy Drew that I practically became a speed-reader because I couldn't wait to finish the book. 

I never liked pausing in the middle of the story with an assortment of clues that didn't add up and a slew of unanswered questions. 

I'd seclude myself up in my bedroom, finishing a book in one day so I wouldn't have to lie awake at night, wondering how the mystery was solved. And then I couldn't wait to start the next one.

Evidently Nancy's appeal continues today.

Last weekend I went with my 10-year old niece to watch Nancy and her pals solve her Biggest Case Ever in a play staged by Orlando's repertory theatre. 

To my relief, Nancy hadn't changed a bit since I last read about her. 

She still had her zippy blue roadster {which she drove while wearing an ultra-fashionable scarf} and she found an old map with a puzzling riddle about a long-lost treasure. 

Occasionally throughout the play, the lights would dim and Nancy would turn to the audience to share some words of wisdom with us about sleuthing.

And then she seemed to look straight at me. 

{I was just a few rows from the stage, after all, quite close to my favorite heroine.}

She said she's discovered that when solving a mystery there are no coincidences, and what seems to be coincidental usually requires a closer look.

I think Nancy's onto something. 

{As she usually is.}

A chance meeting, someone crossing our path that seems like a fluke, a variety of random occurrences -- are they really coincidences or is God at work in the smallest details of our lives?

That's a mystery I can't seem to crack and I've been doing a lot of thinking about it lately.

But when things in our lives look a little dark, or clues don't add up, or what we see isn't making much sense, does it mean that God isn't there in the midst of our lives and at work in those very details?

I wonder if we're confused because we just can't see what he's doing.

Maybe he's the underpinning of it all. He's the one holding us up. 

Maybe he's balancing it all as we ineptly search for clues to confirm our actions, our direction and our intentions. 

And I think there is evidence that what happens to us isn't random and meaningless.  

That's why we have the biblical examples of people, who were just like us, to remind us of the truth about coincidences.

Was it a coincidence that Pharoah's daughter just happened to be in the Nile river at the same time baby Moses in a basket floated by her so she could raise him in a palace that prepared him to turn the tide of history?

Was it a coincidence that new-girl-in-town Ruth just happened to be gleaning barley in Boaz's field, only to discover he was a kinsman of her mother-in-law Naomi, and would become her husband securing her place in the lineage of Christ?

Was it a coincidence that Esther just happened to be chosen out of a myriad of women competing to become queen for such a time as this, to take a risk and save her fellow kinsmen?

So isn't that enough inspiration for us?

I think coincidences open the door to shed a little light on the dark quiet spaces where God is working in mysterious ways. 

And when we believe that he is personally concerned about us and working everything that happens to us into some sort of ultimate good, we can live at peace with the mystery.  

Although that's why I enjoyed the play about Nancy Drew so much. In just two quick hours, the clues made sense and the mystery was solved.

I can't wait for my niece to read all my old Nancy Drew books and get to know her like I do.

But at least she's already met Nancy.

After the play, my sister and niece took a photo with the cast.

I stayed behind the camera, too in awe of my old friend Nancy Drew, to get too close to her. 

I'm having coffee with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart.