Finding God in the Small Stuff

This morning the song Heaven, by Mary Mary, was stuck in my head and I wanted to find my copy of the self-entitled CD so I could listen to it in the car. The only problem was I knew it was buried in the huge stash of CDs next to our player.
Determined to find it as quickly as possible, I grabbed a stack of about 30 or so CDs and began to flip through looking for it.

Nope, not there.

I hurriedly grabbed a second set containing quite a few more discs and began to look through them. I didn't get very far before several began slipping out of my hand. I quickly readjusted them, but then another section began to slip. Once I got handle on the second section of rogue discs, yet another section began to fall. This happened one more time before my clumsiness finally got the best of me and I dropped all of the CDs.

*SIGH*

I bent down to pick everything up, and there in the middle of the mess was the Mary Mary CD! As I set it aside and continued to gather everything together, I was surprised at how quickly I picked the CDs up. It took less time than I thought it would, and it was certainly faster than it would have taken me to flip through the stack, find the CD I wanted, and then put them away.

It was right then, that I realized that this little scenario was a typical example of my relationship with God.

I will set a goal, begin to take logical steps to meet that goal, and if things look like they are about to turn into a huge mess, or more accurately, are not going how I think they should be, I do everything within my power to control it, or to "fix" it. Today's sequence of events reminded me that what appears outwardly as chaos could actually be God's provision of my heart's desire.

And the winner is

Remember when I decided that I would start eating red meat again?
Well in an attempt to have me put my money where my mouth was, Dan suggested that we treat ourselves to a burger tasting around town.

The plan: From the many burger joints in town, Dan would narrow down two places for our burger consumption. We would visit each place individually, rank the burger, and at the end of the day declare a winner among the two contestants.

The Contestants:

VS.

First stop: Culver's

Now I had eaten at Culver's before. In fact, I used to love their tuna melt, but I had never had the ButterBurgers that always gets such rave reviews.
We decided to order one ButterBurger to split between the both of us. When it arrived at the table, I immediately approved of its appearance. The patty wasn't too thick or too thin, and even though we were in a fast food restaraunt, the burger didn't have that fast food look to it.
The first bite was quite good. Good flavor, great bread, not too greasy, and the burger proved to be downright tasty all the way through. Ian agreed as he happily chowed down on my our half of the burger. Yum, yum!

To cleanse our palate, we ordered some peach custard. (What. You didn't know you could use peach custard to cleanse your palate? Well you can. Ask any food critic. The fact that the custard was smooth, creamy, rich, and delicious had nothing to do with it. We were all about business, I promise)

Second stop: Mighty Fine
When we first arrived at Mighty Fine something quite bizarre happened. As I was getting Ian out of the car, I heard a man make a noise like he was trying to cough up a hairball. "WRAGH, WRAGH", he grunted. When he noticed we were looking in his direction, he yelled out towards us "That's a crazy burger man, a crazy burger." That's when I realized, he wasn't clearing his throat, he was expressing his pleasure over his food. I was intrigued.

Once we ordered and received our hamburger, I have to say, it didn't look like my kind of burger. The patty was entirely too thick, and it looked a tad bit greasy. But never one to judge a book by it's cover, I took a bite. I immediately though to myself, Ok, this is pretty good, but then it happened...
All of a sudden, taste buds that I didn't even know I had were awakened. This first bite was heavenly I tell you. I mean bright light shining down, angels singing, heavenly. So heavenly, that the when I finally composed myself to speak, the first words out of my mouth were "Good Lord". The diners sitting to our left laughed.
Oh, and Ian, he gobbled up that burger like nobody's business. You've never heard a 2 year old say yum so many times during a meal. It was absolutely fantastic.

While the Culver's burger was really good, I declared Mighty Fine the winner two bites into the burger. I mean really, there was no sense in delaying the inevitable.

By the way, I was mistaken. What I misjudged as grease on the Mighty Fine burger was actually flavor, baby. Pure, unadulterated, flavor.

We're marching to give all babies a healthy start

Dan and I, for our third year in a row, are participating in the March of Dimes - March for Babies walk. The mission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. We are walking in honor of our son Ian who, as most of you know, was born 16 weeks prematurely, and we need your help. How? We are asking you to please join us in our fund raising efforts today by donating to our family team.

You can make a secure financial contribution with a credit/debit card or PayPal by visiting our personal March for Babies webpage. If you prefer, we also accept cash or check. Just click the appropriate box on our webpage, and follow the listed instructions.

Now if you happened to stumble across this blog, and have the desire to contribute, but are a little uncomfortable giving your name to a complete stranger, no need to fret. With an online contribution, you also have the opportunity to DONATE ANONYMOUSLY.

The March of Dimes mission is one that is, obviously, very personal to us. Our son was born at a mere 1lb 2oz, and we do not take for granted the significant role this life-saving research has played in his life.

Please consider joining us and millions of compassionate people across the country who support March for Babies each year.

https://www.marchforbabies.org/msims80

Obviously I'm biased...

But this kid is so freaking cute!


Before Church on Easter




In Front of Church Building





Back At Home



We had a good Easter weekend. We stayed in town since we had recently traveled to my hometown on Ian's birthday weekend (Did I mention that our little guy was sick on his birthday? He was so sad, although he perked up just a little once he saw the cheese pizza we ordered for him :) He seemed to recover by that weekend though, so we decided to continue with his birthday plans out of town. Anyway...)
Church was great, and on the way home, we decided to stop off and pick up some doughnuts. I think that may have to become an Easter tradition for us :) . I roasted a couple of cornish hens, and after coming off our sugar high, we gobbled that up as well. The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the nice weather.
I found it quite fascinating that this past Sunday started out dark and stormy, but ended up turning into a gorgeous day.
Quite fitting for the event that we Christians were celebrating, no?

He's getting away

Not everyone loves the Easter bunny