Day Three: It's A Choice

I came home from work to an empty home...for two hours.
DANGER DANGER DANGER!
I had free reign over the kitchen. Jeremiah was working the Flying Squirrels game so I wouldn't see him for quite some time. Hmmm.

But not much to my surprise, as I went in for the kill the Holy Spirit zoomed in ahead of me. He reminded me He was with me by bringing some things to mind and allowing my heart and my mind to make a conscious choice to sacrifice.
He reminded me that I was off to small group/book club/Bible study in a couple hours. He reminded me that there I would be surrounded with a handful of women who were all in with this challenge, too--who had been sending honest and encouraging emails all day, helping me to press on. He reminded me that my actions go deeper than I think they will. He reminded me that people are watching and learning, being encouraged or hindered. It's no coincidence that an old youth retreat leader from when I was in high school commented on Day Two and then posted a link to this blog on her own, proclaiming what my church is doing to help feed starving children. How could I give up the fight now? So not by my own strength, but by the Holy Spirit's, I was able to walk away from that dang Twix. And it's actually getting "easier." It's not easy, but it's become more of who I am this week, of what I'm living for. Funny, I suppose that's not so unlike our faith and character that God is shaping. Application point, check.
Blaring in my mind while I was alone in the kitchen was something my Bible study leader told me in college. Righteousness and obedience is not our natural tendency. We have to choose things that bring life, that honor Christ. It's exciting to know that God's truly doing something here, helping me yield to the Spirit. "He must become greater, I must become less."

Day Two: Thankful for Jeremiah

Accountability can be a real party killer in the face of temptation. But I guess that's the whole point of accountability.

I stood in front of our pantry staring at the big vat of Utz Party Mix and the Chocolate Frosted Mini Wheats with a stomach growling for food. I actually I think I heard it say "eat the chips." Perhaps that was the baby talking. Or perhaps it was my weak and susceptible will power, about to fail me once again. And it most definitely was a reminder of why I can't face life's obstacles alone.. without God and without other believers in my life.

You see while I stared down those tasty treats with my right eye, I stared down my faithful husband with my left. There he was, cooking up a fresh batch of rice and preparing his tortilla and beans. He was rejoicing over a mango snack. Unlike me, Jeremiah has been doing this challenge 100%. Tonight's dinner was his sixth meal straight of simply rice and beans, with an occasional tortilla and mango. But who was the one bellied up to the pantry? And who even tried to talk Jeremiah into allowing himself a little wiggle room? Shamefully, me.

Thank God for my husband who God is using to teach me a lesson or two. I could have easily eaten out of excess and advantage and taken this whole thing for granted. But fortunately, I sat down to a disgustingly bland meal of rice and beans wrapped in a tortilla. I hate beans and I can barely get through rice. It was the slowest meal I think I've ever eaten. Hardly any food, but took awhile pacing myself through each bite to keep it down. The water chaser wasn't much of a help either. But I did it. And I'm hungry and unsatisfied. For now.

I think God's teaching me something. It's not all about me. I don't have to constantly be full and satisfied with life... food, clothes, money, etc. It's not about my comfort. And as much as I think I can, I really can't do it by myself. As much as I may strive to do or think what I should, I can't do it without relying on God and faithful people he puts in my life.

Two Weeks

Two weeks people! Boy or girl, what do you think?!

Breaking and Entering

I guess we can't legally be charged with the offense since it involved breaking and entering into our own home. Nonetheless, we looked pretty sketchy (and pathetic) trying to bust through our bedroom windows on Sunday afternoon. It was bound to happen, and I for one am surprised it took four and a half months to come to this.
In our new place we have to go into the building before then being able to go in through our front door. We lock our door religiously and also need a key to get into the building itself (theoretically). Because I've been fearful of this exact scenario, most days when we leave the house together I annoyingly ask Jeremiah if he has the keys. Sunday was no exception. I suppose a better question would have been to ask if he had all the keys--even our house key I lent out to his family while they were visiting for the weekend. Oops! Jeremiah freaked and I laughed. What does one do when they lock themselves out of their own house?? Can't call AAA (speaking of, we need to get signed up for that). Can't ask a neighbor. Shoot.
Luckily, my mind quickly raced back to mid-slumber Friday night when it started storming. I groggily got up and closed all the windows we had open, but didn't want to waste my precious sleep time locking them (those things require some serious elbow grease). There was hope! Until we trekked through the landscaping and bellied up to the window only to find you couldn't really grasp the screen. But by some miracle, Jeremiah got ahold of it and proceeded to bend it until it popped out. What a guy! I think it's his new found handy self. If it were up to me to get us in, we would've spent that night at a shelter. Unfortunately, the screen didn't go back in quite as well as it came out and the frame ended up snapping in half along the bottom before Jeremiah slid it into place. Fortunately, it doesn't look nearly as ghetto as one might expect from the outside.
I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad thing we live on the first floor. On one hand, there would have been no way to break in if we weren't on the ground floor. On the other hand, I guess we'd be a lot safer.

And that my friends is a lesson learned. Actually two lessons learned.
1. It's easy to break into our place.
2. We need to hide an extra key.

Day One: A Rough Start

The novelty of the challenge quickly wore off about an hour into my workday. So hungry. My breakfast consisted of plain rice krispies with a little bit of milk. That'll curb anyone's hunger for oh say 25 minutes tops. I had a little snack of about half a cup of watermelon. Again, not the most filling of foods. I couldn't believe I was actually looking forward to rice for lunch. A massive headache set in around 10:30am and is still lingering as I speak. I've been getting these migraine-like headaches for several weeks now, which I'm chalking up to pregnancy since I never experienced such agony before. Not sure if the headache today was due to the lack of sustenance or just another day in the life of being with child. By 11:30am I got one dry-heave out of my system. I had packed layer lettuce salad leftovers from a cookout the day before. In light of the challenge, I didn't feel right about throwing the rest of it out. I considered this to be a very fortunate treat for me. That consideration came yesterday. Today, the thought of opening up that tupperware of salad made me cringe, and even in my desperation at 2pm I couldn't stomach it. Thankfully, there was a box of popcorn at the office. I confess, I popped a bag and prayed the headache would go away. It did momentarily, but came back full-force post popcorn. I indulged because I was starting to feel like this may be a big mistake with the youngster sucking up every last nutrient that sparsely entered by body and probably craving for more. I had next to no other food options and didn't want to give up so early, so I pressed on until 5pm. Came home to a 4 day old bagel for dinner and napped for a bit over 2 hours. I could really go for a Klondike bar right now.

Jeremiah just came home. He's going hardcore with this challenge and I commend that. For breakfast and lunch he had rice and beans. A mango for snack. At his small group tonight they had rice and beans on a tortilla and mango and banana for dessert. A cup of plain, decaf coffee to follow. He's bored. He had a headache all day.

Cold turkey is a killer.

No revelations right now, but doing a lot of thinking about how fortunate we are, how excessive we live. Doing a lot of thinking about pregnant women living in poverty and the 983 million other people just like me who experience each new day hungry.

Five Day Challenge

Jeremiah just returned from the grocery store with all the food we'll need for the next five days. He didn't even take a list. And the real kicker, he spent less than $20.

See we're joining dozens of other Hope-goers in take a five day challenge to forego our abundance and experience need, want, faith, and sacrifice. Rice and beans for five days. Then give the gap: donate the money you saved on groceries this week to support a cause. Millions of people are starving throughout the world as I eat my double chocolate Klondike bar to round out a day of three full meals and plenty of snacks to supplement.

I hate rice and beans. Well, I can gag down a few forkfuls of white rice (topped with butter, salt, and pepper), but I absolutely can't stand beans. Ugh, the texture is all wrong and the taste is unbearable. So when Hope announced its upcoming challenge, I threw up a little in my mouth and racked my brain for excuses. As luck would have it, I'm almost halfway through my pregnancy, so I sighed a big sigh of relief knowing I wouldn't have to participate. Jeremiah was excited about it, but I felt confident and good about my decision to opt out. Although, a decision usually comes with some thinking, analysis, or debate, doesn't it? I suppose this wasn't a decision at all. I didn't put much thought into it, and surely didn't consider the full picture.

This past Monday a slight revelation occurred to me. Pregnant women in other countries don't have special privileges. They don't get to sit down to a Thanksgiving feast while the rest of their family and friends gag through rice and beans. As quick as the thought came to mind, it was gone. I hate rice and beans.

Then this past Tuesday we went to our bi-weekly dinner gathering with friends. The topic of conversation a friend offered was our thoughts on Hope's five day challenge. What was our initial reaction? Were we planning to participate? As we all shared our honest feedback on the subject, we realized our reactions were pretty telling of what really goes on in our hearts. We talked about how we couldn't be inconvenienced, about how deserving we think we are. We talked about how it's not that much change, about how we don't have to sacrifice. We talked about wanting to keep the money we saved, about the fear of trusting God for provision. "Can't we add a little bit of chicken? I'll only do it if I can pick what types of beans. Can we just do the challenge for dinners?"

We have a lot to be thankful for. I can say I hate rice and beans because I have other options. We can add in fruits, vegetables, and meat. We can choose what type of bean, what kind of rice. We have the ability to give the gap.

How fortunate we are that we have a choice. As Jeremiah mentioned on Tuesday, these people just want to eat. Period.

I hope you'll read through the heart of this challenge on Hope's website. I also hope you'll consider what some of these things mean for you, for your faith. I know that I can go through the motions of this and miss out on a lot that God would have for me. I'm praying that this will be a time of maturity, humility, sacrifice, and faith. We'll let you know how we're doing.

Note: we are considering what are wise yet sacrificial choices for us. And likewise for those who want to participate. Maybe it's foregoing the daily lunch breaks out, maybe it's only eating what's already in your house, maybe it's 15 meals of rice and beans.

Measure Twice, Cut Once Is It?

Ah yes, it is. Or shall I say, it is now.

My first attempt at making flat shelves didn't go as planned. I measured once and debated going back for the second measure before heading out to Lowes but thought that was an unnecessary use of the next 30 seconds of my life. Little did I know what should have been 30 seconds turned into almost a week of impatience. My local Lowes lumber-cutter (I think that's a technical term) painstakingly cut me 5 pieces of plywood to 10.5" x 29". Perfect I thought. Luckily, I did decide to double-check the size before my next step. Turns out the pieces weren't so perfect. Turns out they were about an eighth of an inch too wide. SO CLOSE, yet so so far. Boy was I ticked. It was all my fault, too. At first I thought maybe the Lowes man cut it incorrectly. Nope, 10.5" on the nose.

Several days later I mustered up the energy to go back and see if they'd trim the pieces for me, being that the only tool we own that might do the job is a handsaw. Not even sure why I mentioned that as a tool that might do the job. To my surprise, the friendly customer service representative told me it would be no problem and off I went to the cutting station. My burden had been lifted... until it came crashing back down on my shoulders twice as heavy. The lumber-cutter working this day crushed my dreams. Now, I'll keep (most of) my criticizing comments to myself, but this guy seemed like a total amateur as he measured the length instead of the width to see what to cut. He proceeded to tell me it wasn't possible. I tried my hardest to charm him and explain to him how the previous lumber-cutter made the magic happen. I realized there was no hope. I suppose I could have asked for a second opinion, but a flicker of humility and kindness sparked in me and I decided to let it be.

Too bad that flicker went out by the time I came home and told the story to Jeremiah.

The following weekend we decided to go out and just buy a whole new piece of plywood and get it re-cut to the correct size. Story of my life. I finally put that frustration behind me once I got home and successfully dropped the shelves into place.

I inherited this wrought iron shelving unit from my mom, who actually won it at Longaberger basket bingo. She never really loved it in her dining room and was ready to pack it up and store it. Being that we're losing a room pretty soon (to the babe!) I figured I could use all the storage I can get my hands on for our bedroom when things transfer over. The unit isn't really my style but I think fits in nicely with our bedroom decor, which is a bit out of my comfort zone altogether. I've always been bothered by the opening shelving though. I mean you can't sit a frame on a shelf that's not flat. What a disaster. So, I had to find a solution. That's where the plywood came in.

To jazz the entire shelving unit up I decided to wrap the plywood in wrapping paper. I think you'll agree it's a great solution. Of course I couldn't be too matchy-matchy so I went ahead and picked up two different types of wrapping paper but in coordinating colors. Quick, easy, and inexpensive.