HIDDEN: The details that prove design

There are three distinct things I remember about my Grandmother's bathroom;

A toilet dolly with a crochet dress that covered the tissue roll (and watched your every move!)

A round standing mirror with a long handled comb on the windowsill.

A purplish shell which sat on the ledge beside the toilet.

Outside the bathroom was a chandelier with strings of white shells dangling below. I always wanted to reach up and touch the strands everytime I passed underneath.

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I bought my fiancé to meet 'Dranny' at her home in 2003. We drank from her china teacups over introductions and conversation starters. Her approval and blessing were important to me!

My fiancé politely excused himself to use the bathroom and returned a few minutes later clutching the purple shell...

"Where did you get this?" he questioned wide eyed and gleaming with a smile.

"This is from my hometown....and so is this!" he exclaimed, pointing to the shell chandelier in the doorway.

I had used the bathroom throughout my childhood visits to Dranny's house and always looked at the shell with letters scratched into it; 100 Islands, Philippines.

Was that really the name of a place?

Are there really 100 islands there?

I had no idea where it was or of its significance but I have since been there countless times. A town with a metal front gate and the name I now carry across it, thousands of miles away....

Family Home Gate

My uncle visited the Philippines decades before me and bought back souvenirs from his trip. Perhaps he passed my Tatay's (father in law's) roadside shoe repair stand along the main street or the basketball court where my husband played with his friends?

Of all the places my uncle could have been throughout the country, and of all the gifts he could have selected and bought from any of the locations he toured...He chose two from the town I now call my first Filipino home!

A strange and funny coincidence!???

Banka boat heading to Hundred Islands

We returned to Luzon a few weeks ago and revisited 100 Islands.

Most of the islands are rocks with trees.

Beside the rows of boats I saw a purple shell for sale; just like the one in my Dranny's bathroom with the same letters etched across it. Further along the market stall rows were the signature shell chandeliers I had always wanted to touch: jingling with the sea breeze.

My Dranny never met her great grandchildren. The last photo I have with her is the 3 of us at our wedding blessing ceremony. My Tatay also passed away but their legacies continue.

My new Hundred Islands shell souvenir

If I ever need reminding of God's hand over my life I can look in my bathroom or listen to the shells that now hang above our dining area. These are not coincidences for me. They are signatures of an author who wants to keep proving that he writes the script. That he enjoys the details and lining things up out of sight. It may have been an unusual story but His signature signs every page with a knowing smile.

"...all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be...."

Psalm 139:16

Capiz shells remind us of home

To keep remembering how HIS hand is in and on it all!