Thankful Wife and Mom

It is the most random things that spur big and deep thoughts in my heart. Like the final episode of "The Bachelor" and a random TIME magazine article.
Here are the two things stirring in me:

1. I had a wonderful time last night watching "The Bachelor" with some dear friends. Smelly cheese + "healthy" fruit pizza + roses + cookies + laughter + everyone-lift-your-shirt-and-show-your-belly-so-Emily-doesn't-feel-awkward time + unexpected butt flashes = glorious. I haven't been following the show much at all ... in fact, I think this was the second episode I have seen this season. I could be hater and talk about how little real love exists in the show, but all I could think last night was how thankful I am for my man. As he proposed to Emily, I was off in my mind thinking about standing in an art gallery looking at Josh's tearing ocean eyes as he told me he loved me. After the proposal, they talked with the engaged couple ... and it's been several months since filming ended. Emily said how hard it was to watch the show and to still believe their love was real (and I wanted to remind her that she knew exactly what she was getting herself into). But it made me so thankful for my sweet man ... I never have to wonder if he really loves me or if he is really committed to me. He wakes up in the middle of the night to get my meter when I'm low ... he helps me pick out clothes when I'm running late in the morning, and tells me that I look great even when I know I'm a hot mess .... he helps me find my keys when I lose them for the second time in one day (I blame my pregnancy brain) ... he holds me each and every time I cry and never makes me feel silly for more tears ... he falls asleep with his hand on my belly while I'm reading ... he works extra hours so that me and TC will have a place to call home ... and he begins every nighttime prayers with "Dear God ... thank you for my wife." He is my best thing, and watching a lamentable relationship on TV last night made me so thankful to come home to my husband.

2. While sitting on the exam table last week, waiting for my endocrinologist to come into the room, I was reading a TIME article all about intelligent computers and what our world could look like in the next 50 years (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html). You can read the article if you are interested in the details, but it made me really start thinking about the world we are bringing TC into. I have heard plenty of musings in the past few months about what things could look like in the pretty near future, and most are fairly dire. I'm not really that worried about it ... Jesus knows perfectly well what the future holds, and I am pretty sure he had a say in the beginning of Tiny Cash's little life. But I did feel a kind of maternal instinct in myself ... and as I was walking through the worship center to tell Josh about this article, I thought to myself, "I have a mommy's heart." I am not sure when the transition started happening in me, but I went from being 100 % selfish about how TC would affect my life to dwelling instinctively on the life of our baby and all that it can be. It's not that I didn't love TC before, but it feels like more and more of my thought/emotional/spiritual life is getting wrapped up in love for our little snugget. And the weird/embarrassing evidence of this? I Facebook/blog stalk people that who have babies (whether I know them or not) and sometimes cry when I look at their pictures. Not really sure about this crazy person I am right now (dang pregnancy hormones)... but excited that I am starting to feel like a mom.

Side note:
I have spent most of the morning in bed because I hate getting up when it is raining (don't judge me ... I have 7 hour shift tonight at B&N). But you know what will get me out of bed? Nutter butters. I want some freakin' cookies, and they are worth a journey to the grocery store.

Hillsong United

Thanks to the unmerited favor that has characterized our lives recently, Josh and I ended up going to see Hillsong last night ... FOR FREE! (Thanks for canceling, Miles and Jen!) People around here have been talking about it for weeks, so I jumped on the chance to go. But more than I wanted to go for me, I wanted to go for Josh. He NEVER gets to just worship, to sit in a seat and connect with God without working at the same time. It is truly a treasure for me to get to sit next to him, to hear his steady voice, and to occasionally rest my head on his shoulder.

Just a couple thoughts from the night:
1. I love my husband. It was fun to see his eyes wide as he watched all of the crazy lighting ... he looked like a kid in a candy store. I think I have only ever seen that face when a giant plate of wings is placed in front of him. But last night, his gaze was also tinged with intense concentration as he studied his art. I love his worship heart.
2. I have heard a lot of people criticize Sunday-morning worship at 12Stone for being too "produced" ... and I am not hating on those people, because that was my very own first impression. And if there was ever an over-produced worship environment, it is a Hillsong concert. But God has made it so clear to me that worship is all about posture ... and I can come with criticism or with praise (Side note: this is just as true of sermons ... approach with humility as a learner, and you will learn. Approach as an expert, and you will critique -- unconstructively). And, my first Sunday at 12stone (in the midst of an internal rant to God about how ridiculous the production was), he gave me a vision. I saw the roof of the worship center lifted away, created an unhindered space for the lights/sound/song offering to reach the ears and heart of Jesus. And I got a fresh taste of that last night.
3. Focus has never been my strong suit (just ask any of my friends from college who ever tried to study in the library with me). And that has always been fairly true of me in worship as well. I used to lament this fact, thinking that I was half-heartedly approaching the God who deserves all of me. But my focus doesn't necessarily drift away from God, just away from the song. A word or a thought will capture me, and I can simultaneously sing a familiar song while chasing a thought trail in my mind. And I think God is honored by the way that lyrics make me think new and fresh thoughts, or mediate on old and familiar truths.

Side note:
This morning, I made myself some eggs for breakfast. About 15 min later, I smelled something funny coming from the kitchen while I was in the other room doing my make-up. I walked in and realized that I never turned the burner off -- and my spatula had melted into a pool of plastic in the pan. I couldn't stop laughing ... who else would do something like that? When I was leaving my endocrinologist appointment today, I got a text from Josh that just said "I love you." Guess what he had found?

Great and Humble God

I am pretty much obsessed with this song right now ... when the anthem builds and repeats "my strength in life is I am yours" over and over ... shoot, yeah. Speaks straight to my heart.

But the reason that I wanted to share it with you is because of one phrase that I have been turning over in my head since I first heard this song at church. In the first verse, she calls God "great and humble." Those two words are pretty familiar adjectives in worship songs, but she sings them in sequence as though they naturally belong together. But true greatness tempered by true humility seems a rarity to me ... it's almost as if the two terms are mutually exclusive. Our great God has absolutely no reason to be humble -- just check out Job 38 (if for no other reason, because God is pretty darn feisty here ... I like to think that part of my character comes from Him).
He questions Job:
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?" (38:4-7)
For whatever reason, whenever humans achieve 'greatness' (in whatever way we understand that word), we seem to deem ourselves worthy of praise. And maybe this self-exaltation isn't vocal or public, but there is a quiet temptation to pat ourselves on the back for whatever small greatness we have achieved.
It is fascinating/beautiful/mysterious/wonderful/disarming to me that the very God who created the heavens and the earth from nothing, the One who set the universe into motion, the one who knits life together ... he is characterized by a marked humility. Rather, he defines the word. The more I learn about God, the more I realize that He exists in the unknown overlap between so many opposing truths (ex. justice and mercy) ... and I love this about Him. To serve a God who is so beyond comprehension is exhilarating ... and humbling.
As I write this, I can tangibly feel the same awkward discomfort that Peter felt as Jesus knelt to wash his feet (John 13). In that passage, Peter refers to Jesus as Lord -- though he understood so little of the divinity of Jesus, he understood that footwashing was not a task fit for his Lord. I feel so undeserving of the way that Jesus, in all his glorious greatness, has relentlessly lowered himself to serve me, to wash me, and to lovingly uphold me.
Great and humble God, you are my passion!

Total side notes:
1. I am laying in bed next to my sleeping husband, and his leg hair touched me just enough to make me think there was a spider in our bed. Whew.
2. Josh and I were having a disagreement about a potential baby name, and I resolved it by telling him that our baby won't even know it's real name because I am always going to call it snugget (snuggle + nugget = snugget).