Thanks to three immediate family members, I have heard the word “bracket” a lot lately. Yesterday I was incredulous when my oldest informed me during a short car ride together that there were no perfect brackets.

“What?! Already?!” I exclaimed.

Though I know March Madness is occurring (because of the three aforementioned family members), I am basically living under a rock when it comes to the topic. However, I also knew that my sons had just filled out their own brackets not that long ago. Surely not long enough for no perfect brackets to exist.

Nevertheless, my son assured me that only 2 days into the madness and after only round one, which was 32 games, no one can claim the honor of having perfectly predicted the unpredictable (at least no one within the 20 some million brackets submitted on ESPN). Crazy.

Then my son further blows my mind by saying there has never ever been a perfect bracket.

“What?! Never?!” I am seriously in shock at this point and further revealing I have obviously been living under a huge rock my entire life.

My seventeen year old tried to calm me down with facts. Apparently, it is really hard to get a perfect bracket. Something about one in a quintillion or so. In other words, not really doable for anyone ever in all time and in all generations. At least that was the gist of what he was saying, which was later confirmed by my husband and also an ESPN article he shared with me.

64 teams.

Millions of people – some who dedicate their whole career to studying basketball stats.

Billions of brackets.

Yet no one ever in all these years has been able to even randomly guess the right winners?

That’s crazy talk! But my husband and son both thought it was all quite logical and made perfect sense.

Why is this really getting me all worked up? Sure, it was surprising. I really had no idea about all these facts. But then my mind immediately started processing this new information.

I am worked up because a number of other events that seem impossible to happen by chance are said to have happened completely by chance. Specifically what comes to mind is an event that is occurring on Monday, April 8, 2024, the very same day as the NCAA Championship game.

On the day when everyone figures out how poorly their brackets truly did, the moon will be perfectly aligning with the sun 93 million miles away and displaying a spectacular total solar eclipse starting at 1:40p.m. CDT and lasting four whole minutes for all the people in Dallas, Texas to enjoy, and then at 3:13p.m. EDT for the people in Cleveland, Ohio, and then at 3:32p.m. EDT for the people in Caribou, Maine, etc.

If millions of smart, educated people cannot figure out the winners of merely round one of the March Madness in 2024 even by chance, then how in the world can a total solar eclipse randomly happen by chance?

If a billion brackets can’t get it right, why do we think a billion years can?

We are not here by chance. We are here on purpose. We are here by God’s divine design. And I find that to be very good, comforting news.