Inspire, Spring 2012

Serendipity is a space featuring your stories about the delightfully unexpected ways our Cedarville roots bring us together. Essays can be humorous, heartfelt, or surprising. Please limit your story to 500 words and include your name, class year (for alumni), city, and state. Submit your essay for consideration to Inspire , Cedarville University, 251 N. Main St., Cedarville, OH, 45314, or cedarville.edu/inspire . In my 22 years at Cedarville, I have met many amaz- ing students who have left an imprint on my life. It has been a joy to keep in touch with many of these gradu- ates who have become lifelong friends. In 2008, I met a unique student who soon became like family. “Do you have an opening in The Cove for a student worker next semester?” That’s how I met Grant Miller ’12. I hired Grant to be one of our front desk receptionists, and I soon discovered he was not your typical freshman. Like other Cedarville students, Grant was intelligent, funny, and a hard worker, yet his obser- vations were deep, insightful, and even visionary — he had an uncommonly old soul for an 18-year-old. Our Cove team enjoys strong interpersonal connections, and Grant jumped right in alongside us as we laughed, cried, cooked, played, explored, and shared defining life experiences. In the spring of 2010, as Grant finished his sopho- more year, his mother died after a brief, but courageous battle against cancer. As The Cove journeyed through this dark time together, the foundations of our shared relationships began to shift. Powerfully emotional and meaningful, Lane Ann’s funeral had a profound effect on us all. You can’t always define the moment when strangers become friends, but there’s never a doubt when friends become family. We had stood face-to-face with death and survived. Last fall, while casually chatting about our mutual hobby of genealogical research, we began listing names of some of the more prominent families in our trees. When we discovered we both had “Weather- fords” in our family trees, we quickly pulled up our research on ancestry.com and began to trace it back. After all that we had experienced together over the past three years, the possibility that we could be blood- related was almost too much to comprehend. We held our breaths as we began comparing our research, two computer monitors side by side. When “Thomas Weatherford and Margaret Waring” appeared on both of our screens, we sat in stunned silence as we followed this line on both sides for several generations. The whole office heard us erupt at the realization — we were family all along! We often find strength and comfort in our connec- tions as “Cedarville family,” and this family connection, at Cedarville, is no exception. It will be tough to replace Grant at the front desk when he graduates in May, yet it has become increasingly clear that God’s reason for crossing our paths these last four years was serendipi- tously sovereign. Kim Ahlgrim is an associate dean of the academic enrichment center, The Cove. She has been at Cedarville since 1989. She and her husband, Tom, live in Cedarville and have a son and daughter. You may contact Kim at alhgrimk@cedarville.edu . Grant Miller ’12 is a political communication major from Nashville, Tennessee. You may contact Grant at tgrantmiller@cedarville.edu. Imagine their surprise when Kim Ahlgrim and Grant Miller ’12 discovered they were not only co-workers but cousins! serendipi ty “Cedarville Family” Holds New Meaning by Kim Ahlgrim with Grant Miller ’12