Sometimes people feel like they are victims of circumstance. Everything was going so well, and then somebody said something or did something, and all of a sudden everything changed.
A person was about to close on a business deal, and someone made a negative comment about him, and the deal fell through. Someone was expecting to get a job, but someone else said something to the employer, and he didn't get hired. A shidduch was progressing nicely, and then someone from the outside said something negative, and suddenly the whole thing fell apart.
People could spend months and even years thinking about what that other person did to them and think, "If only he never said that. If only she didn't get involved, everything would have worked out." But a person with emunah looks at these situations very differently. We know that only Hashem is the One who decides what we're going to receive in this world.
No one ever has the power to take something Hashem wants us to have. People have free will, and they are definitely accountable for what they say, but whether or not their words will affect us is only up to Hashem. If someone is meant to get a job, nobody can stop him from getting it.
If a business deal is meant to go through, Hashem will make it happen despite all the people trying to interfere. And if a shidduch is meant to take place, nobody can stop it. Sometimes Hashem allows us to see this clearly.
There was a story this past year of a shidduch in Kiryas Yoel that was progressing very nicely.
Both sides were happy, and the families were preparing to meet on Motzaei Shabbat to finalize everything. But then, on Friday afternoon, someone told the girl's mother something very negative about the boy. They said, "He's very short. I don't think you should go through with it." And this made her concerned.
She started having second thoughts about the shidduch. Everything was going so well, and now, because of one person's comment, the whole thing was in jeopardy. The girl's father decided to go to the Satmar Rebbe to ask for guidance.
He arranged to see the Rebbe shortly before Shabbat. When he got there, there was a brit milah taking place, and they were missing one person for a minyan. Someone went outside to find the tenth man and stopped a boy who was walking by.
Who was that boy? The very boy whose shidduch was now being questioned. The girl's father couldn't believe his eyes. Of all the people who could have been walking by at that moment, this was the person they brought in.
The mother, who was there, was able to see for herself that it wasn't as bad as that person said. But beyond that, the extraordinary timing gave the family a tremendous feeling of hashgachah peratit. At the very moment they were seeking guidance about whether or not to proceed, Hashem arranged for the boy himself to appear right before them.
Their confidence was restored, and the shidduch went through. Look at how easily Hashem took care of that situation. Someone made a negative comment that threatened to ruin the shidduch, but Hashem made it disappear without anyone getting involved.
This is something we have to remember in every area of life. A person might hear that someone spoke negatively about him to his boss, and now he's worried about losing his job. Or someone might have told a potential customer not to do business with him, and he's afraid of losing a major account.
Of course, we have to make whatever reasonable hishtadlut is necessary to protect ourselves and correct any misinformation. But we should never feel that the other person has any control over our future.
Sometimes Hashem will make the negative words fall on deaf ears. Sometimes He will arrange for someone else to come along and correct the negative information. And sometimes the very person who was influenced by the negative information will discover the truth on his own.
And if something doesn't end up working out, that too is from Hashem. It wasn't that the other person managed to interfere with what Hashem wanted for us. For reasons we don't understand, Hashem decided that that particular opportunity wasn't good for us. The more we internalize this, the less resentment we'll have toward other people.
Instead of constantly replaying what someone said or did in our minds, we could remind ourselves that our lives are always in Hashem's hands. We should never hurt anybody, and we should never interfere with other people's opportunities. But when someone does that to us, we don't have to let it disturb our peace of mind.
Nobody can take away what Hashem wants us to have. And when Hashem wants to give us something, He knows exactly how to do it.