Miracle of the Potatoes

Today was a bad day. A really bad day. I knew it was going to be bad when Anna woke us up by coming into our room at 6:15 and my headache from the night before had only gotten worse. I won't go into the details of the day, as they really don't matter. The bad day was entirely inside myself.

There was, however, one miracle. One brief moment where a smile graced my tired features. The miracle of the potatoes.

Knowing that I wasn't going any where today, the effort to get kids into the car being just too much, I needed to come up with something for dinner that didn't require a trip to the store. In a stroke of genius, I thought of shepherd's pie. I had plenty of carrots (I use about 5 times the amount recommended by the recipe), peas (another of my modifications), and some lamb in the freezer. Perfect! I started chopping carrots, thawing meat, and then I reached into the cupboard for the potatoes. I only had three. Normally, I use at least 6 to top my shepherd's pie and I was crushed. Not only could I not find a way to be happy today, but I couldn't even cook dinner for my family.

I tried thinking of anyway to get potatoes. I even tried calling Hubby to see if he could come home early, but the pre-WWII, bunker-like, cell phone reception squashing cement walls of Bagley Hall thwarted me once again. Finally, I decided to just make it with three potatoes. Sure, it wouldn't be as good as the other times I've made it, but it would be food. Then, as I was putting on Anna's shoes so we could run down to the front of the building and cut some rosemary, the miracle happened. For no reason at all, I suddenly remembered that the last time I had gone grocery shopping there had been too much to carry, so I left a new bag of potatoes in the car. Cue angels singing. Sure enough, there they were, in all their potato-y glory.

Thanks to that simple bag of potatoes, I had a smile on my face for at least a half an hour, a record for today. God certainly is mindful of every one of us. I'm glad that he loves me enough to remind me about a forgotten bag of potatoes just so that my day could be that much better.