Carrie Edwards bought a lottery ticket online (against her Army buddy's advice), let ChatGPT pick her numbers (also against his advice), forgot she'd opted into a second draw, and won $150,000.

Then she gave every cent of it away. And $42,000 more out of her own pocket to cover the taxes.

The story went viral worldwide — Tamron Hall, Inside Edition, Fox News, Korean headlines at her nail salon. An estimated 6 billion media impressions. And she got there by calling the Virginia Lottery's PR team herself and pitching them on a press conference.

Sitting alone at her kitchen island, she heard a voice — clear as if someone were standing next to her — say it's not your money. And she listened.

The money went to three places: AFTD (in honor of her late husband Steve, her best friend of 47 years, who was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and later died of frontotemporal degeneration), Shalom Farms (the food justice nonprofit in Richmond that healed her hands-in-the-dirt back to life), and the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (in honor of her dad, Captain Peter Swanson, a Navy fighter pilot — whose wife, by the way, took the kids to peacefully protest the Vietnam War while he was flying missions over it).

This one moved us. We talk about the still small voice and how to actually hear it. The Army friend who's now taking full credit for her windfall (of course, he is). What it's like to lose your favorite person slowly, and then all at once. And how Steve walked their daughter Kelly down the hallway to get married two weeks before he died.

Plus: why your tax dollars aren't feeding active-duty military families, why Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening should be on everyone's nightstand, and Carrie's quiet rule for life — reach behind you and bring the next one in line.

You may have caught the headlines. This is the part they didn't tell you.

Donate where Carrie did: 🧠 AFTD — theaftd.org 🌱 Shalom Farms — shalomfarms.org ⚓ Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society — nmcrs.org

Just because it wasn't the plan doesn't mean it wasn't supposed to happen.

📬 thatwasnttheplanpod@gmail.com 🌐 thatwasnttheplan.com

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