I’m not a very observant person. Ask Jane. She can confirm. Sometimes I think I have a smaller memory capacity than most people so my brain optimizes for it by only storing the things I am most interested in. If ever in your life you are presented with the opportunity to pick me on your trivia team, I would definitely pick the random stranger standing next to me.
With that context, you’ll understand why a recent small string of events helped me more fully understand that God cares both about us and the things that are important to us.
It all started with the need to do laundry. Typically this occurs Saturday morning. We, however, had plans to go to Half Moon Bay for surfing lessons that morning, so I suggested to Jane that we’d need to do laundry first thing in the morning so it was done before we left or instead we could do it Friday night. Jane presented a third option which was to do it early Friday morning.
Thus on a Friday morning we find ourselves doing laundry. Upon leaving the high-rise in which the washer and dryers are located, I happened to notice an old-school T.V. in the “give-a-way” section on the lobby. Other items were also there, but I only noticed the T.V.
My day continued as normal. I was scheduled to meet with my advisor at 4:30 for a check in. At 3:00, I attempted to reschedule that meeting for 3:30, but was unsuccessful. At 4:30 I meet with James. At 5:00, two summer interns walk into James’s office and inform him that they have been unsuccessful in their search. Turns out they are searching for an old T.V. that they can take with them to Oregon to watch the eclipse.
Well, wouldn’t you know it, but my brain has stored the fact that I saw an old T.V. just that very morning. I tell them I’ll see if it’s still there when I get home. They ended up picking up the T.V.
Now, you might write that off as coincidence, and maybe it was. But I personally believe that God inspired people in very small, insignificant ways so that a couple of summer interns could find just the T.V. they needed to watch an eclipse.
Reflecting on the experience has made me wonder how often God is helping me when I’m not so aware of it. I think some day we’ll look back and see he played a bigger role in our lives than we ever imagined.