The tank top miracles

I always wish I could really see all of the places where the Lord touches my life, see and feel and understand which bits were evidences of divine love.  Would I be surprised?  Have I recognized many already?  Are there so many more I'm not seeing?

I wonder.

Sometimes something will happen and I'll think that it was a convenient coincidence...but then sometimes something else will happen that, for me anyway, solidifies the situation as a Tender Mercy.  Like the tank top miracles a couple of weeks ago.

My car accident shoulder has been bothering me this year.  Not in an every-minute-of-the-day kind of way, but at night and with some kinds of movement.  One day I was at work and mentioned to the naturopath that I probably needed some acupuncture on my shoulder.  A couple of hours later she came out of her office and said that she'd had a cancellation and could do it that afternoon after I was done working.  As I was sitting on her table and she was getting ready to start I had a little sinking feeling...she was going to need me to take my sweater off to access the front of my shoulder and that was going to make me uncomfortable.  But then just as quickly as I had that thought, I had another one.  In an unusual turn of events I was wearing a tank top under my sweater!

That morning I'd picked a v-neck sweater to wear and had wondered if it would be a little too low, so I'd also grabbed a tank top to wear under it even though in the back of my mind I knew that I regularly wore it alone.  Who knew how grateful I'd be for that tank top just a couple of hours later!

I think I told Jared about what had happened later when he asked me how my day was.  I told him I thought it was probably a tender mercy, and how grateful I'd been to have the tank top on under my sweater.

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About two weeks later I was at work again and my shoulder was bothering me again.  I had to reach under the desk to pull out a plug and re-plug it and the action of reaching was seriously painful.  When I mentioned it to Hilary she told me that she had an opening on her schedule again that day.  (I should mention that both of these last minute openings were highly unusual, she's often booked out a week in advance.)  So once again I found myself sitting on her table, having that sinking feeling about needing to take my sweater off, and once again in EXACTLY the same way I realized...I was wearing a tank top!

It had happened in just the same way.  I had taken down another v-necked sweater that I regularly wore alone, been concerned that it would be too low, and put on a tank top first.  I hadn't even thought about it after that because (as it always does) within a few minutes sweater pulled up in front and the tank top wasn't even visible.

Sitting on the table in Hilary's office I happily pulled off my sweater.  But part of my brain was on fire.  "Did you SEE that?!?" it asking.  "Not once, but TWICE!"  Those random thoughts in my head (that really do sound like every other thought I've ever had) nudged me towards the tank tops, on days when having a tank top on was going to bring peace to my heart.

Tender mercies indeed.