finding God in the washing machine...

you know how every now and then, you're reminded that someone's looking out for you? it happened to me this morning and i had to laugh. last night, i threw a load of clothes in the washer before bed, as is my usual habit. this morning, as i was transferring them to the dryer, i found an empty package of dried fruit in the washer with the clothes. this isn't unusual for me, i have kids, so i find wrappers for all sorts of random things in the washer that i didn't manage to fish out of a pocket (usually shane's) but fortunately, everything is wrapped in plastic these days so stuff doesn't disintegrate in the wash. i pulled it out and didn't think much of it, and continued to put clothes in the dryer. about 2/3 of the way through the load, i noticed something stuck to the side of the washer, pulled it off and realized it was a rather re-hydrated chunk of dried fruit. upon pulling more clothes out of the washer, it became clear to me that this had not been and empty package of dried fruit, because the bottom of the washer was dotted with multi-colored chunks of not-so-dried fruit. i looked from that to the now full dryer, and realized that i was going to have to check all of those clothes because, although the fruit held up rather well through a wash cycle, i didn't imagine they would do so well in the dryer and that's the last thing i want permanently glued to an entire load of clothes, not to mention the inside of the dryer. (i think that might be worse than a clerical collar, mary!) so i took everything out and reloaded the dryer, shaking each item before putting it back in. i found 3 more pieces of fruit; one in a washrag, and two in underwear - one in dave's, one in mine... not sure what that says about our underwear... but i was very thankful to have found them and the whole thing made me smile.