I took a tumble while doing yard work a few years ago.

Rushing to get to the next thing on my to-do list, I pushed a wheeled yard waste bin, lid open, down a slope in the back yard. Close Cover Before Moving, the instructions said; It'll be fine, I said. And then I tripped. Plunged head-first into the unforgiving rim of the receptacle. Oh, the humiliation.

Next stop, emergency room, bloodied towel pressed to my skull. Twelve stitches later, I attempt a few lame quips and exit the ER at a slower pace than usual, with all the possible alternative outcomes marching through my brain. I could have detached a retina; I could have been alone when it happened; I could have suffered a concussion.

This incident came to mind last spring, when I got my weekly greeting from Mary DeMuth—an insightful and prolific Christian author whose words never fail to inspire me. In it, she issued a challenge: Review your personal history and identify circumstances when the hand of God reached down to intervene.

A sampling from my list:

•Long before preventive medication* existed, I was born an Rh baby: My mother's Rh negative blood battled my father's Rh positive contribution, creating unwanted antibodies that affected my red blood cells in a life-threatening way. The doctors scrambled to do a total blood transfusion via incisions in my groin and ankles and IVs in my head and arms. They almost lost me once. But the heroics of my medical miracle workers prevailed, and an indulged, healthy baby left the hospital a few weeks later.

I have no idea how the mechanics of this blood exchange worked, but I thank God that they did.

•On a sledding outing with my family, four-year-old me begged to slide down the steep hill alone, like my big brother. Off I went, only to dramatically shift course and rush headlong toward a huge pine tree.

As my parents' panicked screams rang out from the hilltop, a tall, nimble fellow swooped into my path, diverting my sled from its careening race toward catastrophe. And then he was gone—my own personal Superman, disappearing into the snowy landscape before my relieved parents could thank him.

I have no idea who this kind stranger was, but I thank God for sending him.

•I lived in Tennessee in my mid-twenties. Drove a sensible Volkswagen Bug and got to know the major driving routes in the Memphis area. One day, after having my left-front tire changed at a local garage, I tootled onto the freeway toward home. A few minutes out, blam! The entire left-front wheel popped off, just as a towering semi blew past me on the right.

Huffing what I feared might be my last breaths, I coasted, lopsidedly, onto the grassy middle island and sat there in a panicked daze.

A tow truck from the very garage I had just left pulled off behind me, hooked me up, and towed my car, the errant wheel, and me back to have things made right. Their traveling close enough behind me to witness the accident was no accident.

I was being watched over, and I am grateful.

Today's blog is an invitation to not put off this helpful exercise, like I did. It's a vivid reminder and a lesson in appreciation.

And I needed both.

*The RhoGAM ® Vaccine prevented the Rh hemolytic disease in newborns, which—prior to the mid-sixties—claimed the lives of 10,000 infants each year in the U.S. Hemolytic disease is an autoimmune condition that develops in a fetus during gestation.