Why?

The final stages of nesting and pregnancy have arrived. I forgot to eat lunch during my lunch break today because I was too busy using our waterpik to powerwash the gunk out of our kitchen sink faucet handles. Fortunately, my missed lunch was no problem. I was still stuffed from the two bowls of cold chili I called breakfast.

But as I nest and eat my Tabasco-ridden food, I’ve also been wrestling with a few questions.

“Why me?” Why did God choose to entrust Nate and I with this little girl? There are so many barren couples who long for children. Why are we so fortunate?

And most of all “Why her?” God’s made it clear from the start that he has a plan for this little girl. First of all, HE gave her a name before we even knew we were pregnant. As I was reading one day, he pointed out a word and asked me to name our first daughter that. Surprised, I told him I would...you know...one day. Two weeks later, we learned we were pregnant. “Oh, did you mean now?”

Next, as we prepared for our first ultrasound, I asked God to give us a boy’s name so we could be prepared for either a girl OR a boy. After all, I had always been convinced that my first born would be a son. God’s only response was “You have what you need.” Sure enough, the ultrasound technician told us it was a girl.

God didn’t just speak to me about this child. He also spoke to my dear friend and mentor Elise. Elise had been praying for us regularly concerning our plans to move to Thailand. But around the same time that God gave me a name for our child, God began planting an image of a baby in Elise’s mind each time she prayed for us. Elise argued with God, explaining that we were preparing to go to Thailand, NOT preparing for a child. But God refused to remove the image from her mind. After this happened a few times, Elise was silently convinced we would soon be pregnant. Meanwhile, I was still clueless.

These experiences make it clear that He has a plan for this little girl. He’s also revealed His sovereignty to us through His Word. HE knit her together in my womb (Psalm 139:13) and HE will be there at her birth carrying her in His hand (Isaiah 46:3).

I wonder what God’s plans are for this little girl. My hope and prayer is that she’ll have terrific health and will grow to love the ways of the Lord. Nate and I will certainly do everything we can to lead her in that direction. But the truth is, we don’t know what God has planned. Despite what we don’t know, the one promise we CAN hang on to, is that God has a plan for this little girl. She is no mistake.

I don’t know why we have been blessed to be parents or why God has matched us with this particular little girl, but I AM confident that His grace and glory will be displayed through her birth and life.

Caring for the Flour Sacks

The doctor says I’m supposed to put on 35 pounds during my pregnancy. That’s the equivalent of strapping seven flour sacks around my belly and carrying them around with me EVERYWHERE I go.

Now that I’m in the six month of pregnancy, I’ve successfully finished off Flour Sack #3. To show her gratitude, Flour Sack #3 has started to kick me. I hear that I can expect future sacks to be even more violent.

To try to understand pregnancy, Nate decided to strap three (non-kicking) flour sacks to his own waist. Here’s a photo of us celebrating the progress. According to the doctor, I still have four more flour sacks to go, but I have NO idea how they’re going to fit. Perhaps Baby Cheeseman will be the first lady to join the NFL.

Not All Pork Was Born Equal

Last week the Asian market was giving out samples of a food I had always wanted to try. The fact that it was wrapped in seaweed and located in an ASIAN market should have given me the hint that the delicacy wasn’t Mexican. But since it was labeled “pork” and looked the approximate size of a Chipotle burrito, I had associated the food with something as tasty as mouthwatering tamale.

As I approached the sample table, I noticed that the consistency wasn’t quite like the doughy shredded pork I expected. With the seaweed wrapper gone, my dream food looked more like chunks of pale hotdog. Unintimidated, I took a bite. The flavor of marinated cartilage infused with pickled baloney soared through my mouth. DEFINITELY not a tamale.

Trying to appear pleased with my selection, I took a closer look at the ingredients under "Pork" label. “Pig fat, pig hooves, salt and vinegar.” Mmmm. Next time I’ll read the label more closely.

Hair Dryers and Water: They Don't Mix

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all the things we’re thankful for. There are many for me. But the most recent addition is that silly little picture they put on hairdryers to warn people not to use them near water.

This morning I had to soak my feet in warm water for 30 minutes. (Due to a very sore/black toenail I received during our last backpacking trip.) Standing still for half an hour is a challenge for someone who struggles just to have a sit-down-dinner. So I decided to soak my feet in a huge bucket while I stood at my bathroom sink eating breakfast and getting ready for work.

This worked fine until I pulled out the hair dryer and plugged it in. Before I could hit the switch, an image of a stick figure standing in a tub of water, shaking violently and holding a hairdryer to her head flashed through my mind. She had frazzeled hair that stood out in all directions and was waving one arm in distress.

I’ve always wondered who comes up with these morbid images and puts them on appliances. And what crazed person would dry their hair while standing in a tub of water anyway? Now I know. Never again.

Cloudy with a Chance of Lizards

Yesterday on the way home from church, a lizard fell out of the sky and crashed into my windshield. At first I thought the impact had killed him. But one stoplight later, the 6-inch Godzilla resurrected. Positioning his buggy eyes inches away from my own face, he dug his claws in and glared at me in a bitter yet pleading manner. Apparently he knew that the brutal “execution by windshield wipers” lie at tip of my fingers.

I was more pleased with the situation than he was. It’s hard to maneuver through 4 lanes of city traffic with an angry lizard directly in your line of site. After a few miles of this stare off, Godzilla decided to take matters into his own hands. He tried to leap off the car, but due to the speed of traffic, each leap just resulted into another traumatizing crash back into the windshield. He would leap, I would yelp. He would leap, I would yelp. Meanwhile Nate documented the process on his flip phone.

Finally, our friend made a successful jump over the top of the car and went flying towards the pick-up truck behind us. I don’t know if he lived or not, but the photo is all we have left of his memory.

Google flaws

To practice our language learning, Nate sent me a love note in Thai. When I copied it into Google translator, here's what I got:

"You are a lover of my best friends. I cannot wait to share. Your wife is good too."

Hmmm...I wonder what other language mishaps we're going to have.

No Such Thing as Free Lunch?

As promised, Nate and I dressed up like cows on Friday and showed up at the steps of Chick-fil-A in hopes of getting 2 free combo meals.

Getting a cow outfit was no problem. The restaurant offered a free printable costume on their website, complete with a cow face, 2 ears, 1 nose, 8 spots and a very long tail.

Getting people to accept the idea of dressing like a human cow was a little more challenging. As we walked up to the restaurant, two middle-aged ladies pulled up in their Porsche, rolled down the windows, and pointed our direction in a fit of hysteria. It appeared that they were trying to say something, but unable to gain their composure, they spat a crackling laugh in our direction and sped away.

Our reception inside the restaurant was not much better. Our saving grace was having two cow-dressed coworkers join us halfway through our meal. The four of us stuck out so much that the restaurant manager asked to take our picture. It wasn’t until AFTER he took it that he informed us he planned to print it out and hang it on the wall for everyone else to see.

The free food was nice, but here’s the part of the evening that truly baffled me…After getting our free meal, we went to the mall where there happened to be ANOTHER Chick-fil-A offering the same deal. Wanting to share our wealth with others, the four of us (still partially dressed like cows) began telling other people at the mall about the deal. We held up our bags of left-over Chick-fil-A food and ensured them that if they just took our cow ears/spots and wore them over to Chick-fil-A (just 100 yards across the food court,) they could get a free sandwich, fries, and milkshake just like we had.

No one accepted the deal.

One guy said he was hungry and loved Chick-fil-A but wouldn’t stoop to the level of being seen in public wearing cow ears. Two other teenage girls looked skeptical of whether or not we were playing a prank on them. They took our outfits, but we watched them stand at a cautious distance from Chick-fil-A and eventually toss the costumes in the trash.

I couldn’t help but to think of how much this parallels the way so many of us reject God’s grace. God offers to forgive us for all the rotten things we’ve done. All we have to do is humble ourselves and accept the love and grace he’s offering. Sure, this is going to make us act and look different, but there’s nothing we have to do (or CAN do) to get his grace. But instead of accepting it, we let our pride get in the way and we try to “buy” our way into his mercy. We’re scared people might laugh at us if we act differently than the norm. Or we think his promise of free grace can’t really be true. After all, here’s no such thing as free, right? Wrong. There’s free lunch from Chick-fil-A, but even more importantly, there’s free grace from God for those who are willing to accept it.

Ephesians 2:1-10 (The Message)

“It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.”

Free Chick-Fil-A this Friday

This Friday (June 10) Chick-Fil-A is giving out a free combo meal to anyone who comes to their restaurant dressed-up like a cow. Yes a cow. You can even print off a "cow costume kit" at their website. See http://www.cowappreciationday.com/ for more details.

Unwanted Company

Last night I woke up to the sensation of something crawling up and down my leg. At first I thought I was dreaming about an ice cube. Then I realized the ice cube had prickly antennas. Suddenly wide awake, I screamed and flailed the blankets off the bed.

Nate, typically a sound sleeper, woke up by my scream. In his semi-conscience state, he concluded that I was being attacked by a demon. Without warning, he lunged across the bed in a full-fledged tackle and, with one hand raised in the air, began proclaiming the blood of Jesus over our house.

Alarmed by my baptist-turned-charismatic husband, I fumbled for the lamp. The light revealed a 2-inch-long cockroach cowering on the floor, looking almost as scared as I was. Three war cries and four towel-swats later, my brave husband destroyed the critter, leaving roach arms, legs, and wings strewn across the floor.

Meanwhile, we must have awoken our upstairs neighbors. They began pacing nervously on the wood floor above us, probably wondering if they should call the cops...

Life is never dull in our apartment. Maybe I should stop praying so hard that God would start preparing us now for life overseas…

Our Daily Grapefruit

In January Nate and I hiked a remote trail, praying we’d find some wild Floridian grapefruit. We should have been more specific about the location of the fruit. Eleven miles into our hike—at the exact distance that we had planned to turn around—we stumbled upon the biggest cluster of grapefruit I have ever seen.

Most normal people would probably have left the fruit alone rather than carry it back for an additional four hours, but did this stop us? Of course not.

With the dignity of caffeinated junior high boys, we kicked, yelled, and karate chopped our way through the marsh-surrounded tree. First, Nate climbed the tree and shook its branches violently until most of the fruit fell to the ground. Then we hurled softball-sized rocks at the remaining rebels. By the time the battle was over, my head was covered with a thick layer or dirt, bugs, tree limb fragments, and fruit indentations. Nate looked as if he had been attacked by a bobcat.

Nevertheless we were pleased with the outcome—one backpack, one knapsack, and three plastic grocery bags brimming with delicious grapefruit.

Ignorantly undaunted by the distance between us and the car, we set off power-walking towards home. One mile into the trip, the plastic bag I was carrying began to rip under the weight of the fruit. Reflecting on God’s goodness in giving the grapefruit, I prayed that God would provide another bag for us to transport it all home. Minutes later, we found a Wal-Mart bag lying in the middle of the deserted trail. Another provision from God.

At this point, we apparently became greedy. When we saw ANOTHER wild citrus grove off the path, we laid down our bags and went to get more goods. We returned with an additional 20 pounds of oranges, 2-dozen new scratches, and 30 minutes less of daylight.
Not having anywhere else to put our new acquisitions, we began stuffing oranges in every conceivable inch of our bags, coats, knapsacks, and pockets.

In case you don’t know how heavy 50 pounds is, imagine this scenario. Walk 11 miles to the grocery, buy SEVENTEEN of those 3-pounnd bags of grapefruit. Load them into plastic bags, and then carry them 11 miles back to your house. Now imagine getting lost and having to walk an extra two miles in the dark because your mistake.

That’s what we do for fun around here. But despite our self-inflicted woes, we made it back to the car with all our limbs and most of our toenails in place.

Next, we needed to figure out what to do with 50 pounds of citrus. We tried giving them away, but all our friends seemed to have stockpiled store-bought fruit. We also tried an assortment of recipes (including grapefruit pie), but these didn’t go over too well.

So if anyone needs some grapefruit, let us know. I look forward to the day when I can see the bottom of my fridge.

Ivy