blessings in disguise

Sometimes it's nice to have a reminder that the Lord is watching over you.

I had that reminder more than a few times on Wednesday evening.

You see, we had a snow storm arrive in D.C. around 4pm. And for some reason that's exactly when OPM decided government workers could go home because of the storm. So we were all on the road at the same time, adding to the usual traffic situation and barely able to see because the hail and then snow were coming down so hard and so fast.

I should have left the office at noon.

There were so many near misses along my way, I have no doubt that guardian angels were protecting me as I inched along. My little Honda Civic certainly wasn't made for such adventures. It barely made it out of Christian's babysitters hilly neighborhood. From there we had several hills to go till we arrived home. And several cars spun out of control around us up all around us as we crawled along, skidding, sliding, praying all the way.

I rolled into our parking lot two and a half hours after I left the office, my heart beating fast. Finally safe inside the apartment, I breathed a sight of relief, said a quick prayer of gratitude and called Shane to let him know we were safe.

And then, before we had a chance to settle in and prep dinner, I got to see everything Christian had eaten for lunch come up and onto our couch. At first I thought maybe it was a fluke. He couldn't be sick. He didn't have a fever. He was acting normal. But then it happened again.

For the next 24 hours we watched everything Christian tried to consume (after a while, we just stuck to water), come back up. And in just about every corner of the house (of course).

But even as I took pile after pile of nasty smelling bedding, towels, pillows to the laundry, all I could think was: thank goodness he held off till we walked in the door.

There is no way we could have it safely home in that crazy storm if my son had been in the back gagging and hacking up everything in his stomach.

It was just another reminder that the Lord knows me, and knows me well. He knows I can only handle one crisis at a time. And for that I really am grateful.

On top of those blessings, we also were blessed with power the entire duration of the storm, even while friends in neighborhoods near and far reported outages. The simple ability to do laundry and run a bath for Christian each time he needed a rinse was a gift I will not soon forget.