A very, very big blessing

I've had one of those days where it's hard not to see God's hand in how it all played out. I've been grateful all afternoon that despite they day being inconvenient, being a big change to my planned week, being much more expensive than planned, at the end of it, we're all alive and healthy.

Let me back up a couple days. You might remember that I had Lasik surgery on my eyes. When they do that surgery, the slice a flap in the cornea before the laser the eye back to good vision then put the flap back over the eye. Over time, that flap heals. Tuesday evening, in a freak accident, Ellie threw her arms around me for a piggy back ride at the same time that I moved my head and her little finger nail ended up slicing across the front of my eye. As it turns out, one of the two, sharpest, non-medical instruments is a child's finger nail. She could have punched me in the eye and it would not have hurt that corneal flap, which was still healing from the surgery. But she caught it in just such a way that it wrinkled the flap, causing me some pain, discomfort and slightly blurred vision in my right eye. The eye docs at Robbins Laser Site got me right in, put a therapeutic contact on my eye and told me to come back Friday so they could see how the eye was healing.

This isn't the end of the world except this doctor is an hour from my house. And I have no family around to leave my children with to run such errands. And I had planned to go pick $1 a pound blueberries on Wednesday, which I moved to Friday, which I've now moved to Monday and will most likely have to move again. And we're going to North Carolina next week for Bob's family reunion so I have a million things to do. A three-to-four-hour detour to Webster every couple days with my kids just wasn't sounding fun.

So, today, I left my kids with my neighbors. I've mentioned them before. They are pretty incredible. Our kids play great, and I know in their home there is nothing that my children wouldn't be exposed to that I wouldn't approve of. I trust the care of my children to them entirely. After my eye appointment today, I was gassing the car up when I had a feeling that I really needed to have our van looked at before we left next week. I chalked this feeling up to a mental reminder of everything I needed done, grabbed my cell phone and called Patrick Pontiac in Henrietta -- a car dealership Bob does ads for and whose service department is absolutely excellent. I asked if they could look at the van next week. They told me they were completely booked, but asked if I could get it in right then. Ugh, I thought, but sure. I called Josh and Kelly to ask if it were ok that I would be a little late so I could get an oil change and have the van looked over. Naturally, they figure the chances were pretty good that my kids would be involved in some sort of game of Star Wars make-believe at their house whether I was there or not. So, I took the van and Josh kept the kids so Kelly could go run some errands.

I bought a book to occupy myself ("The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud" of which I finished 220 of 270 pages) and waited and waited and waited. Finally, the service guy came and told me one of my front tires had a puncture wound (not knifed like Bob's, more like a run-in with a curb that I don't remember) and they were surprised it hadn't blown out. The other front tire was cracked. The van had no other major issues that I wasn't aware of, but the tires were a big deal. I knew I probably needed new ones soon, but wow, that bad? I felt grateful that I'd felt the need to stop and that they could work me in.

Probably around the same time, my little guy decided for whatever reason to pop a rock in his mouth. Josh heard him coughing, and wondering why he would suddenly be coughing after a day of perfect health, checked on him to find him choking. Josh picked him up, beat on his back and got the rock out. When I got home, Josh told me about it right away, apologizing that he didn't watch him better and that they didn't usually have little things like that on the floor. He didn't want the kids to tell me that he'd beaten on Robbie, but he had hit his back to get the rock out. All I could think of was how grateful I was he was with Josh, a state trooper with a tour each of Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt. Josh knows how to handle emergencies. All he could think of was that I'd be upset that the boy choked, and all I could think of was how grateful I was that Robbie was with someone who could handle the emergency and save him. If not a rock at the Bacon's, it could have been a Lego at my house. I wonder if I would have been as effective in saving Robbie's life.

So, I kind of think God had his hand in my day and I'm grateful. I sincerely think the Holy Spirit whispered to me to check right away into getting the van looked at. I don't think the people really had space in their schedule to fit the van in, but they did anyway. And I got to sit and read a book. And my son was with someone who could protect him today in a way that maybe his own mother couldn't have. I gave my kids extra big hugs tonight. And they hugged me back -- safe, warm, wiggly, alive little bodies who God protected today.

I can't help but be very, very grateful for those very, very big blessings.