Greetings earthlings

Cale had to go out of town today for work. He will be back home late tonight, but it will be a long day as he left the house at 4:45am. He doesn't have to travel very often which we are both thankful for. If he does have to travel somewhere for any length of time it has always worked out that I've gone along. So in the last few years, I have been able to spend a week in Monterrey, CA, we've been to LA a few times, Las Vegas, Virginia, Florida- not bad when you aren't paying!

Last night we were trying to remember the last trip that he took and realized it was several months ago. And that reminded us of a funny story...Cale was traveling with a co-worker and they had to rent a car to get to their meetings. He called me when they were on their way back to the airport, glad that their meetings were over ahead of schedule and they were going to be able to catch an earlier flight.

An hour later I got a phone call from a woman for the rental car company. She tried to explain that something had been left in the car. I asked what it was and my question was greeted with a long pause. She then tried to describe the item to me saying that it was white and had a part that said "Push" but when you pushed it nothing happened. The woman went on for two minutes in her description and then finally, in exasperation said, "I don't know what it is! It looks like it belongs in a spaceship!"

Trying not to laugh and completely mystified as to what she was talking about, I agreed that the best course of action was for her to return the missing piece of our spaceship to us. I called Cale to tell him and see if he had any idea what she was talking about. He was clueless so we would just wait and see what the item was.

The NEXT day, the mysterious item wound up in our mailbox. The woman from the rental company overnighted the package to us, because apparently she didn't want us to be stuck here on earth because we were missing a critical piece of our spaceship!

And the mystery item- a flashlight that is a part of the rental car (a Dodge Caliber). There is a picture of a flashlight on the flashlight right next to the "Push".

Unbelief and my aching tooth

****Disclaimer: I promise that all my posts will not revolve around some physical ailment! It just so happens that the Lord decided to teach me something through my teeth today and I felt the need to share it! ****************

So I have had a toothache off and on for awhile now. I went to the dentist a few weeks ago and thought he had fixed the problem, but it really starting hurting again a few days ago. When it started to ache again, I did what comes naturally to me- I took some medicine. And when it didn't stop hurting quick enough for me, I prayed and asked the Lord to make it stop. We can stop right there and recognize that I have things a bit askew, but that's not really the point I am going for.

(Although, that is something that I really do need to take note of as I become more and more aware that my daughter is watching EVERYTHING I do and I want to teach her to go to Jesus first in all things! So I guess I need to be reminded to do the same!)

But I digress...here's the thing, my toothache went away! And it hasn't started up again in over 24 hours. All day yesterday I was just waiting for the pain medicine to wear off and to pop another pill. But it didn't. I realized today that the Lord answered my prayer and I am sorry to say that I found myself surprised. What's wrong with my thinking here? Doesn't the Lord always have my best in mind? Why do I seem to have enough faith to pray and ask Him to heal my tooth, but I completely doubt His willingness to do just that? Doesn't He love me more than anyone else does and is always finding ways to glorify Himself in my life?

What's even more disappointing is that Cale and I had been talking about his very idea a few weeks ago as we were studying John 11 when Lazarus dies. We had read a commentary that talked about the idea of believing that Jesus has the ability to meet our needs, but we are shocked when He actually does it. The author said that the we are shocked because we think that He is more interested in helping other people out than showing up in our lives in a very personal way.

The conversation Cale and I had came back to me this morning when I was eating my very crunchy cereal for breakfast and realized I was fine. No pain. And still none as I write this. So I have been reminded today that even in my unbelief Jesus comes to me and meets me and fills my life with grace that I don't deserve.

May your life be filled with the same.

I'm really doing it!!

I have spent the last week of my life laying on the couch with my foot up in the air mulling over what would be my first post. It had to be good...deep, meaningful and thought provoking. But that is a lot of pressure, especially for someone whose brain was foggy from pain medicine much of the time. I wish that I could tell you I took advantage of my time on the couch to have some wonderful time of deep reflection and meditation. But the aforementioned pain medicine made that a challenge. As did the one year old running around, coming over to "beep, beep" my nose every time I began to drift off to sleep.

All that to say, that I really don't know what to write my first post about. This whole blogging thing feels like a big risk to me, but I know that it is a risk that I want to take. The idea of being disciplined to write (and I use the term "write" loosely, not necessarily equalling quality) is appealing to me. It's something that I have wanted to do for awhile, but haven't had the guts to do. While I do the classic journaling with relative frequency, blogging would be an opportunity to write and express myself in a whole new way. It would also be a way to keep a running commentary on life as we experience it as parents to a spunky and sweet one year old.

So as you can see, I have high hopes for this new undertaking. We'll see how it goes! Here's to hoping that the Lord will use it to bring Himself glory in what is written and that He uses the process to teach me more about Himself and the way I relate to the world around me.

(Oh and by the way, I spent the week with my foot up in the air because of some minor foot surgery that was required. I won't bore you with the details, but I am recovering quite nicely, thanks for asking.)