This bunny cup was given to me when I was born. At some point in my adult life, my mother gave it to me, and it has stayed in the shadows for all these years. Not in literal shadows, but the fact of its existence has never prompted any thought in my brain whatsoever. Clearly I’ve been packing it and moving it with us when we’ve moved, right? It’s been on a shelf collecting dust which I have not even bothered to clean.

Our daughter is expecting a baby, their first, and when I realized I’d be able to go to the baby shower, I was looking around for something old of mine to give her, in addition to other things. The bunny cup waved a metaphorical hand to get my attention and just like that, I saw it. How charming! I looked on the bottom of it and saw that it was signed “B ‘58.” No longer a random kitschy item, this had true provenance. I could tell by the signature that the bunny cup had been lovingly painted for me by one of my two aunts, both of whom had names beginning with the letter B. Which one? I couldn’t tell, but decided it had to have been the older “B,” since I knew she was the artsy type.

I cleaned it off and gift-wrapped it, preparing it for its new home out West. On the way out there, I got an unexpected email from one of my cousins, a son of the younger “B.” He attached several photos of his mother’s pottery, a topic we’d apparently touched on at some point and which I had forgotten. Lo and behold, there it was, her signature on the bottom of several pieces, the very same signature that was on the bunny cup. A small thing, but this was True Providence. Here was an item I hadn’t thought about or cared about for decades and almost the very minute I began wondering who made it for me, the answer came in an unprompted email. Some would see this as an unremarkable coincidence, but I see it as a kindness of the Lord’s, an attention to little details. What I put in the shadows, He brings to light.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, if I can find it among the shadows.