The Goodness of God

I recently was convicted about my disbelief in God's goodness.  Don't get me wrong, I have always thought God was good.  God sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins so that we could have eternal life.  I would say that's a pretty good thing (please note my understatement here) ... that's an amazing thing.  However, recently it has come to my attention that I'm not living my life in such a way that shows I truly believe in God's goodness.  Specifically, I don't think my prayer life shows it.

In my one Bible study we are reading through the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus is urging his disciples to be persistent in prayer- no spiritual progress is made apart from God's grace.  But, what he says next really hit me.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!"

Again in Isaiah 49:15 it says:

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!"

God is SO good to us.  He wants to give His children good things, He doesn't forget us, and He wants us to persistently come to Him in prayer.  D.A. Carson says that,"we frame our requests in accordance with what we know of the character of the one whom we are addressing... we can enjoy the assurance that (our) father will not give (us) something which greater experience and wisdom assesses is not in (our) best interest."

Because of this truth I can continually ask God for something, trusting that if it doesn't happen, God, who has infinitely more wisdom than me, has assessed the situation and deemed it not necessary for me.  And I can trust His response to my request is good because I know that He wants to give good gifts to me because I am His child. 

I've realized that my prayer life is revealing that I'm not thoroughly convinced of God's goodness and the love He has for me.  I think that's why my prayer life can become so dry; I tend to approach God assuming that my request won't be answered because there is some sort of trail or lesson I need to learn.  And yes, at times, God show us His goodness by saying no, just like a parent needs to say "no" to their child for their own good.  However, God also delights in showing us goodness by gladly saying "yes" to our requests and watching us, His children, thank Him for the blessings He undeservedly gives.  I can't miss that part about God's character.  Piper says it so well:

"God will not turn away from doing you good. He will keep on doing good. He doesn’t do good to His children sometimes and bad to them other times. He keeps on doing good and He never will stop doing good for ten thousand ages of ages. When things are going bad that does not mean God has stopped doing good. It means He is shifting things around to get them in place for more good, if you will go on loving Him."- John Piper

Such a simple truth, yet so profoud in its implications.

Staying Calm

When we have a busy week, I tend to like looking at things similiar to the ones below.  They remind me to breath, slow down, and trust God.  It's kind of amazing how a photograph can do that for you isn't it?

I hope if your week is busy, they can do the same for you :)

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"Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." 1 Corinthians 15: 58

Our last couple trips before May

Dan and I are trying to balance seeing everyone we possibly can and doing everything we possibly can before the baby is born, while also spending time sleeping in, resting, and enjoying these last few weeks we have with just the two of us! This past weekend, was spent doing the former.

Straight from work on Friday we hopped in the car and and headed into the city- during Chicago rush hour and a crazy storm.  Although it wasn't the best drive we've had traveling to Indianapolis, we made it there safely and even got to see a pretty rainbow (see below) when we arrived in West Lafayette which somehow made it all seem better :)  We spent the night catching up with my bro, his wife, and my parents (we even skyped with my other brother in California :) and also watched March Madness.  (Sadly, my bracket has taken a turn for the worst- I knew I couldn't trust UNC to the end).

Then, after having an amazing brunch with them we got up and headed to Indianapolis to spend some time with Luke and Brittany.  We got Huddles ice cream (oh how I wish they had these in Chicago), I asked Brittany a thousand questions about giving birth (she's a labor and delivery nurse), and then we hung out with some friends, Blaire and Evan, that we hadn't seen since our vacation we took last year!  In Florida Blaire was pregnant and now Caleb is almost 8 months old!! It is so crazy to see how fast they grow.  I'm sure I will be saying this a year from now!

The next day I drove over to spend the day/ night with my best friend from college, Jamie.  We spent our time catching up and even went to Target to tweek my registry a bit.  Although we may have knocked down a couple large baby signs in the process, we managed to test out all the strollers and have successfully decided to go with the Chicco travel system.  I think we made a good choice :)

Overall, it was a great weekend with Monday coming sadly way too soon!

The rainbow after our long drive through the storm.  

Jon & Holly's cats.  We like to think of them as their kids :)

What Luke and Brittany got us!! SO cute! 

And Brittany made this blanket for us, as well- so sweet. 

And as if that wasn't enough, I got to Jamie's house and she got together all of my friends from Miami to write us letters and bought us this bear, overalls (for the baby after 6 months) and a nursing cover! We seriously are so blessed.

And she got us these cute socks :)

Dan and Luke intently looking up the best/ manliest stroller they could find lol

Jamie's sister, Patti, is throwing a bridal shower and she was testing out Pinterest ideas :)

We made amazing home made pizza!

All of the encouraging letters we got from my Miami friends!

Annnd when we walked in our apt this is how cold it was.  I can't believe we had the air conditioning on last week (I'm pregnant and I get hot easily.. don't judge) because it was 80 and now we had to turn the heat on so we wouldn't freeze!

Surprise baby shower

I was completely thrown off guard when I walked into Bible study on Tuesday night and saw our table decorated with nice cloth napkins, pink and blue flowers, amazing food, and gifts!  Don't get me wrong, we bring snacks every week to Bible study, but the second I saw how nicely our table looked with all the baked goods, I knew something was up.  Chrissy made some amazing food (all Pinterest finds that were sooo good- she has been noticing my lemon cravings :) Much better than the chips and guac that I picked up from Chipotle the week before!!

Anyway, they were SO sweet and we spent the Bible study eating and opening gifts.  I was just totally blown away by their generosity and secret planning.  Opening all of those cute baby gifts got me even more excited to meet this little boy / girl!  I felt so loved :)  Here are some (blurry) pictures from my phone.  Let's just say the lighting is not the best in Cornerstone Cafe.. where we have our Bible study on Tuesdays. 

The decorations and food!

More amazing food

All the ladies in our study :)

One more shot with Lina, our Women's Ministry director, in it!

Pretty flowers

Isn't this bottle so cute?!  I love the little blue holder :)

Oh, and this picture was taken after our ultrasound.  Since our baby cooperated so well I decided to treat it to a McDonald's sundae :)

30 weeks

Dan and I were SO looking forward to our 30 week appointment.  We loved watching the 20 week DVD and looking at the ultrasound pictures and couldn't wait to see more pictures of our baby!  We saw so many fun things at this ultra sound:

• Our baby has hair and we could see it.  How crazy is that?!  I had a full head of hair so this didn't surprise me, but it was so fun to see it on the ultra sound.
• We got to see our baby look around- the eyes actually moved around and we could see it on the ultrasound!
• His/ her head is in the 80th percentile. Yep, the head is measuring in at 32 weeks 5 days and our baby is only 30 weeks.  I blame that on Dan :)
• Our baby has huge chubby cheeks already- our ultrasound technician said she wanted to pinch them (see below!)
• Apparently measuring the stomach gives them a good idea of the weight of the baby.  Our baby was in the 40th percentile, which was a little small (meaning our baby will probably weigh in the 7 pound range at birth) however the femur was long, which means our baby is measuring tall (in the 80th percentile).  So, we have are going to have a skinny baby with a big head and long legs :)
• The baby is already head down... which is a huge blessing!
• Annnd our favorite part BY FAR, was that we saw our baby smile AND yawn.  It was seriously the cutest thing ever.  I watched that part of the DVD probably 5 times.  So stinkin' cute.  We are totally going to be those parents that obsess over every. single. thing. our child does.  Expect pictures of every huge life moment: sneezes, yawns, blinking, any arm or leg movement, it will all be documented for your viewing pleasure.

Every time we get to see pictures of this baby we are just reminded of what a miracle this whole process is.  We are so thankful for our healthy baby and can't believe that we will have the privilege in just 10 short weeks to take care of this baby and welcome him / her into this world.  We are so incredibly thankful and cannot wait.  May 28th can't come soon enough :)

This picture was taken right before the yawn! The baby opened its mouth and was smiling (head on the right, eye is the dark round spot, underneath it is the open mouth and the gray area is the tongue :)

Side shot

The foot kicking against my stomach!  This is what the baby does when I feel movement 

Kind of another terminator shot :) BUT, underneath the eye you can see the HUGE cheek.

The hand

Crazy weeks and sunny weekends

Have you experienced that moment when you get to class and the girl next to you casually asks if you have your paper?  Then, right as you respond with, "you're kidding, right?" you see her slowly pull out her 6 page paper and you realize this isn't a bad dream, it's reality, and you have failed. Miserably failed.  Thankfully, I have a wonderfully gracious professor that gave me two days to read his 250 page book on Buddhism and turn in my 6 page paper.  So, that pretty much sums up my last week.

But, this weekend came, and it was wonderfullll.  Really, any weekend can go from a 6 to 9 when it's 80 degrees in mid March in Chicago.  It just doesn't get any better than that.  And, we made our first official trip to Babies R Us and Buy Buy Baby.  Up until this point, I have looked up reviews on everything we have listed on our registry, but we have yet to actually look at anything in person.  With that being said, let me ask you something.  Did you know that you can buy a stroller for $800?  I mean, don't get me wrong, it looked nice and was super smooth, but if I'm going to spend that much money on a stroller, it better be making me lattes on my walks.  So, as Dan and I sat there in the $600 gliders (that were amazingly comfortable, might I add) we discussed  how much money we could spend on this baby. Then we laughed about it for a little bit.  Got up, and decided we needed to start looking on Craig's list for some deals.

Via I love the white and the shelves - I think this will help us save some space

In other news, since I am going to be working from home part time, I told Dan that I realized I am going to need some sort of a desk area.  The couch is not going to cut it with my two computer screens.  Since we lost our Ikea desk in the flood last year in our other apartment, we need to buy another one and decide what is affordable and how we will fit it in our apartment.  Naturally, I headed to Pinterest to look for some ideas:

via definitely not conducive to our one bedroom apt.. but that yellow chair!? adorable 

via Good idea for storage

via Cute- doesn't take up too much space & has storage 

So many options... I just hope I can find a small amount of space in our apartment to set something up :)

House Renovations

Nope, we didn't purchase a home.  However, our close friends, Becca and Andy did, and since we know we're going to be spending lots of time there, it kinda feels like we have.. without spending the money or planning the renovations ha :) I feel like it's even better than buying our own home.

Anyway, it's really exciting.  They have their own yard. Their own garage. Kids play next door.  They drive into a neighborhood to get home.  It's so foreign to Dan and I.  For so long I've lived in a dorm or apartment, I forgot what it felt like to pull up to a house in an actual driveway.  We're pretty pumped for them, and excited to watch their progress.  They are doing LOTS of updates to the house- taking down wall paper, tearing down walls and cabinets, painting, renovating bathrooms.  It is going to look SO great when they're done!  I probably won't document their changes as closely as Becca will on their new blog, however here are a couple shots we took already when we were over there this past weekend:

Beleive it or not there was a wall there ... now it's gone!

Their new pretty living room :)

The kitchen- everything is gone!

And to celebrate our hard work we sat outside afterward and ate cake that Jessica brought over from her B day :) Hello huge slice and huge belly.

Happy Friday!!

Link Love

via What I'm looking forward to doing soon :)

Other fun things I've seen around the web:

I'll be using some of these tips of how to take care of yourself when you're busy. 

I need to start writing things down that I am thankful for.  I particularly liked the one on Anne's list of not turning blessings into burdens.

I really liked this article on "Losing the Baby Weight."  And, the few times I've watched the show I've found it entertaining :)

I can be such a high school girl when it comes to Taylor Swift.  Yes, I listen to her music, and I have been particularly enjoying this song

I'm not sure why but I'm really liking colored pants recently.

Happy Wednesday :)

The South Side

Last weekend I got to catch up with some of my previous "Bible study girls" as I like to call them :)  Mandy recommended we go to a cute restaurant in Chicago.. and by that she meant a cute restaurant on the South side of Chicago.  For those of you who live around here you know it's not the best part of town.  And, when we were looking for a parking spot I landed one right next to a house with a sign in the window that said "We will call the police."  I thought about taking a picture, but then realized that may lead to me getting arrested so I didn't.  At that point I knew we definitely weren't near the Bean or Navy Pier anymore.

However, she introduced to me a cute, "hole in the wall" restaurant called Pleasant House that had tea time on Sundays (adorable) with little scones and treats, and also little pies.  Mine had chicken curry in it and it was SO good.  This cute couple owns the place and although it is super small, it was fun.  I love trying out new places, and thankfully since it was Sunday we didn't hit too much traffic going through the city.  Take a look at the restaurant!

My meal :)

Tea time.

Bethany, Stacy, and Mandy

Mandy let me jump in one :)

This will be our life soon...

Last weekend we babysat my boss' kids.  The mini mahls and I go way back: from showers to other babysitting adventures, we love watching them.  And, they are about 7 months old now, (one of the cutest ages!) and we got to hang out with our other co workers Ashley and Caleb.  4 against 2 seems to be a good number when we are watching babies. 

What struck me about our time babysitting them is that for most of the afternoon we were just hanging out, not really taking any pictures, and then came time for dinner.  Seriously I was like a kid at a zoo.  You know when you're standing at the polar bear exhibit, or the penguin exhibit.. really any exhibit at all, and you see one of the zoo people come out holding a bucket? You have that moment where you lock eyes with your sibling and at the same time exclaim "Feeding Time!" feeling so privileged that you have your awesome front row view of the feeding. 

Well, that was a little how I was on Saturday when it came time to feed the kids.  A little kid at a zoo.  The second we got those bibs on I informed Dan to get the camera ready and take as many pictures as he could.  This was no easy task however as they are constantly moving around, grabbing the spoon, food container, bib, their shirt.  You name it, they wanted to touch it.  But it was oh so adorable.  And even though it was messy and a little crazy, I kind of wanted to do it again.  I'm sure we'll have PLENTY of opportunities in the future. 

So, here are some fun shots we got of "feeding time" and some other moments of the night :)

Clara :)

cute Caleb (notice me holding his bib down..)

Dan can totally handle two kids at a time. On his own. 

It was SO fun to watch them interact!

Clara :)