Friday the 13th; total opposite of bad luck!

On Friday the 13th many people, jokingly or seriously, observe a day of potential bad luck to overcome them. As it is always wise to avoid potential dangers, people tend to be slightly more aware of them on a day like Friday the 13th. When bad things happen on this day, it is even blamed on the date.
Very interestingly, Friday the 13th is a day originally observed in countries which have a society based on Christian values and morals (even if the country in question does not inhabit a lot of Christians). With Westernization, this 'tradition' has kind of spread around the globe, but that is beside my point.
What I already hinted at is the connection there is with Friday the 13th and Christianity. In what way exactly are these connected? you may think. Well, allow me to give a brief history on the 'tradition' of Friday the 13th.

In the Bible, in Exodus, the 'exodus' (or escape) of the Israelites out of Egypt is described. This became a celebration observed annually by the Jews. On the 10th of the 1st month (which was March!) a lamb was to be selected. A few days later, on the evening of the 13th day (which was the beginning of the 14th of the month), the lamb was to be slaughtered and eaten. This was the celebration of Pascha, or Easter. The duration of the celebration was two days, because it depended on full moon, which couldn't always be pointed out very precisely (sometimes it was full moon during daytime, for example).
So when Jesus was going to celebrate Pascha with his apostles, it was actually the 12th of the month (on the Thursday evening), when he celebrated the first day of Pascha. This was because the 14th would be on the Saturday, which was a sabbath (a day on which no works were to be done). On this day, at the beginning of the 13th, he celebrated Pascha and afterwards he was captured. The day after, on Friday the 13th, he was sentenced with death and crucified.
This is the reason Friday the 13th became a day on which bad luck was said to overcome the people.

However, as a Christian, Friday the 13th should not be a bad luck day. On the contrary, it should be a day for celebration. A day to observe the great mercy God gave us! On a Friday the 13th, God offered His Son for us, to release us from the evil that had us all die. He took the death away from us by having His Son pay for our sins.
If Friday the 13th should be observed; His great mercy shall be the thing to celebrate.

~~~~~X~~~x~~~X~~~~~
*~Maria

Destiny and Coincidence...

^^ A philosophic title and a philosophic topic this time...
Gosh, the word PHILOSOPHIC is hard to type quickly! Õ.Õ
I've been thinking a lot about this lately, I was inspired by philosophy class of my sister, long story short: it was about beliefs...

This is what I came up with, after thinking it through:
There are two things that you can believe in, concerning the future.
Those are Coincidence or Destiny.

Coincidence
People who believe in coincidence, might believe in good or bad luck as well, since luck is something that can happen to anyone, at anytime and unannounced.
People who believe in coincidence don't think a certain destiny exists.

Destiny
People who believe in destiny might be people who live the day without reflecting on their acts, since it was inevitably that the events would happen.
I think destiny believers are people who live by the day or for the future, but definitely not focused on the past.
Destiny believers might believe in luck as a way to influence destiny (as a way to make things happen faster/earlier).

Luck actually has quite a difficult meaning. People who believe in luck can either believe in coincidence, because luck is something out of a lotery, or they believe in destiny, because luck can be obtained by avoiding black cats for example...

Here's my real dilemma: I don't believe in coincidence, but I also don't believe in destiny and that things happen as they were meant to happen... (I'm also not a firm believer of luck, other then "I'm lucky I don't have to go outside now that it rains" for example).

So what do I believe in?
I mean, there seems to be no other path then planned future (destiny) or unplanned future (coincidence), right?

Still, I definitely do not believe in everything being a series of coincidental events, but I feel destiny is a word that's too strong...

After thinking long and hard about what I believe in, I came to this conclusion:

I believe in GOD. He has a plan (planned future!), but he gave us a free will, to choose for him or not (unplanned future!).
On our path through life, we can make decisions on what we do and think, but for everything we have no influence on, God decided.
"Destiny" in my eyes means "God's decisions" and "coincidence" means "my free will".

^^ So what do you believe in? =)

~~~~~X~~~x~~~X~~~~~
*~Maria ♥