God-incidence or Coincidence?

I don't often have my eyes open, or antennae up, for signs from God. In fact, I'm downright skeptical about visible, audible, tangible signs from God--at least in my own life. When they happen to other people, in the plentiful stories I've read about miracles, spiritual signposts and divine interventions, I can only enjoy them from afar. Signs in other people's lives are in the realm of possibility, a realm that I don't necessarily inhabit.

I started memorizing verses a week and bit ago (read my other posts), and Jeremiah 29:11 was one of the first verses I memorized. "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  (Jeremiah 29:11)

As I previously wrote, I have never had much confidence in my ability to memorize things. I hated history classes because I had to memorize dates and names. Ignoring this blatant obstacle to my intentions, I just sat down each morning and memorized the verses (while I searched through the job ads). I had it firmly memorized for a few days.

On Saturday, I took my son out to look for some reasonably priced toys at a local second-hand shop. We love going there because you never know what you might find, and you're almost guaranteed a major bargain. Upon entering the store and heading right to the toy section, we found a play kitchen that would be perfect for the kids, especially our toddler. Within a few minutes, we had paid for the item and headed back home.

For some reason, I decided to head back to the store a second time. I don't often do this, returning to a store twice in one day. But I thought I would give the Halloween costumes another look.
As my son and I browsed the isles, I wandered over to the picture frames section, simply browsing the items for sale. I picked up a silver frame that had some words engraved deep into the frame. I read the first few words and I knew where the sentence would lead to: it was Jeremiah 29:11.

I don't know if this is a sign or not, but my wife was very encouraged by this God-incidence. What's more, the following day there were some baptisms during the church service, and I was able to witness two baptisms. The tradition is to bring a family member, close friend, to say some words to the baptismal candidate to mark the occasion. So the fiancée was called up, and one of her first words were from....Jeremiah 29:11.

Now I took it all in stride, but I'm beginning to think that God's trying to reassure me of His plans for me. In moments when I feel that pang of panic--and it comes quite frequently--I can mentally return to these moments of reassurance. God's in control, He knows and cares, and ultimately He's got the plan that I can't see.