I’ve been gardening for a few years now, with nominal success. I’ve started slow, trying to learn to be faithful in little – and, by God’s grace, the garden has gotten better and better each year. This year is the best yet. Today, I am so thankful for my garden and for others’ gardens, for the grace of God in worked soil and fruitful plants.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a chance to reflect
I’ve never been a super intentional gardener, but I took some time after weeding this week to make some notes on what worked and what hasn’t worked with the garden this year (to help me with planning future gardens). I’m glad to be slowly growing as a gardener.

…for broccoli still going strong
Did I mention that my broccoli is still going? My mom always got rid of her plants before now (even farther north.) I’m not sure if that’s because they wouldn’t produce or just because it was too much work to keep up with harvesting, but I’m delighting in fresh broccoli in July! We had some in our stir fry this last week.

…for zucchini and potatoes
A friend from church had received some produce from another churchgoer’s garden when the friend was hosting ministry partners in her home – when the ministry partners left, she had an excess of zucchini and new potatoes, so she passed them on to me. We enjoyed the potatoes in a curry a couple nights ago and had fresh zucchini last night! (I didn’t plant zucchini this year because my plants died off right after their first fruit the last couple of years – I figure my soil must have something icky in it or else I’ve got bugs. I’ll try again next year when we’ve moved.)

…for another try with the beans
When I took the dehumidifier water out to water the garden yesterday, I noted that the beans are flowering again – I’m hopeful that this time they’ll actually produce.

…for a new garden bed
Now that building is about to commence (and we’ll be moved before the next garden season), I’ve been thinking about my garden out on the land. I know I want to move my current raised bed out there (It’s very useful to me and I doubt anyone who buys our house will be particularly interested in a 4′ x 8′ concrete block raised bed!) But I also want to expand to two beds next year. The only problem is that it does cost some to assemble, and I really want to avoid excess spending while we’re in the building process. I was thrilled, when I went out to the land to assess what was left behind after the trailer was moved, to discover 49 cinder blocks that the trailer had been sitting on – 9 more than I need for a second raised bed!

…for a reminder to break up my fallow ground
Barbara reposted an a blog post she’d written about fallow hearts yesterday – and it was just what I needed. As I read, I realized that I’d been letting bitterness harden my heart – and had been focusing on “getting past it” instead of on confessing it and rooting it out. God used Barbara’s post to spur me to finally start to deal with my heart – so that God’s word can grow and bear fruit in my life.

Even as I improve as a gardener in earthly soil, may my heart’s soil become ever more receptive to the planting of the Lord.

Due to Tirzah Mae’s clinginess at the end of last week, I delayed grocery shopping until the weekend (hoping that the clinginess would subside.) The clinginess continued, but Daniel agreed to come along and help out. And am I glad he did.

This week I’m thankful…

…for for Daniel’s help while shopping
He dropped me off at the library and sat in the car with Tirzah Mae while I ran in to drop off books and get new ones. He went in and bought our coffee (and some ground mustard) at the Spice Merchant while I stayed in the car with Tirzah Mae.

…that Daniel was with us when we got a flat tire
Yep. On our way from the Spice Merchant to ALDI, the passenger back tire went flat. Like, TOTALLY flat. It was undriveable, the rim was on the ground. But because Daniel was there and actually knows how to change a flat (versus me, who would have spent hours pouring over the owner’s manual trying to figure out just how to get the equipment out from under the seats), it wasn’t that terrible.

…for Oscar lending us a jack
One of the residents of the neighborhood we’d stopped in saw us systematically emptying our vehicle (Tirzah Mae’s big Diono Rainier had to be removed to get at the jack and tire iron and whatnot.) He came out to see what was up and loaned us his floor jack for Daniel to use while changing the tire. What a relief to not have to use the flimsy jack the vehicle is stocked with!

…for a full-size spare
If you’ve ever driven on a donut, you know the relief that is a full-size spare. We could drive comfortably through the rest of our errands, and even leave replacing the blown tire to a more convenient time this week instead of having to get it done that very moment.

…for Providence
Little trials such as these remind me of God’s providence. For every tribulation we face, a dozen more are forestalled. And even in our minor sufferings, God’s faithfulness can be clearly seen in every little (and big) help. May I ever be reminded, in those times when His providence is less visible, that His providence is nevertheless just as real.

“The Lord is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts, and I am helped;
my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.”
~Psalm 28:7 (ESV)

Facebook informed me that National Best Friends Day was earlier this week – about the same time I was posting my rather self-pitying review of Nesting: It’s a Chick Thing, bemoaning my lack of friends.

And yes, it is true that I have not formed close friendships since moving to Wichita. I have met people, established some relationships – but haven’t developed those close, heart to heart, friendships I covet.

Even so, I am reminded this week of God’s mercy in what friendships I do have – and in the regular possibility of forming new friendships.

This week I’m thankful…

…for girly stuff with the girls
We generally all hang out as a group – several couples and a few single men. We enjoy Rachel’s happy food or Amy and Brian’s game days. But this time, Rachel and Amy decided to do a girl’s day. We enjoyed female fellowship, made roller bottles of essential oil blends, and ate girly food. It was a wonderfully relaxing morning.

…for fellowship with Matt and Megan and the opportunity to help them
Megan and I were due within a week of each other – except Megan went full term. We enjoyed comparing pregnancy stories and newborn stories, enjoying the similarities and differences between our daughters. Now their family is headed out of town, onto different things. We caught up a little before they left and had opportunity to help them pack some stuff up and clean the home they’re vacating. God has been good to give us their friendship thus far – and we pray God will bless them where they are now.

…for sitting with Alexa and DJ at church
We’ve seen them from the balcony a few times but haven’t been able to catch them at the end of services. But this time we passed each other the day before and determined to sit together. I’m glad to know they are well.

…for a girl who is eager to know us
We’ve sat near this family for months now, have greeted one another during the greeting time and sometimes talked before the service. I want to get to know the family better – they remind me of my own family when we kids were all still at home. But it’s awkward, trying to get connected. Sometimes I can feel discouraged, like connection (with them or other families) will never happen. But then the oldest daughter nearly runs over to talk with Tirzah Mae and I and I feel encouraged – we will develop friendships with families. It may take a while, but it will happen.

…for lunch with Dave and Kasey
It’s been a while since we caught up with their family and had lunch after church – but we did this week. With a few family members off on missions trips, the group was much smaller and more intimate than usual – allowing for good conversation among the whole crowd.

…for Tuesday Connection
This summer’s Bible study is populated largely by young moms – and while I don’t want to ONLY know other young moms, it is nice to meet more people who are at the same life-stage as I.

…for good conversation at Happy Food
Happy Food is always enjoyable. The food is always delicious, the conversation usually stimulating. But sometimes I engage more in true relationship and sometimes not. This week, I was reminded to be intentional about asking people about their lives instead of only engaging in the intellectual or witty repartee that is so common (and entertaining). It was good to hear of Rachel’s plans, to better know how to pray for and to encourage her.

…for hanging out with a new friend and her family
We met after Bible study a couple weeks ago and her kids were enthralled with Tirzah Mae. She invited me over – I accepted and we arranged a time. And it was delicious, just spending a leisurely afternoon chatting and playing.

Maybe I don’t have the deep friendships I long for (yet), but God has blessed me richly. And even when I haven’t had such a full life of human friendships, I’ve always had the friendship that endures:

“What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer”

Thank you, Lord, for demonstrating your friendship by laying down your life for me while I was yet an enemy. And thank you, Lord, for demonstrating your kindness by bringing these many other friends into my life.

Tirzah Mae and I usually leave the task of getting the mail to Daniel, but I was eager to try out the ring sling I (finally) finished so we took the quick jaunt across the street. I was glad I had the sling, because I wouldn’t have been able to carry Tirzah Mae plus the mail plus the small brightly colored package and the larger Amazon package if I hadn’t had Tirzah Mae already tied on.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a new phone
I dropped my phone within six months of getting it, cracking the screen, but it’s worked okay since then. When the contract expired shortly after Tirzah Mae was born, I told Daniel I thought my phone was fine – we didn’t need to get a new one. Sure, it had some difficulties charging and the battery ran down quickly, but it met my needs. Then when I was in Lincoln for a week and Daniel in Wichita, we discovered that the phone calling function works only about half the time. We vowed we’d get me a new one before either of took another trip. The time got moved up a little more whenit became increasingly difficult to turn the screen off and on about a week ago. So now I have a fancy new phone with all the bells and whistles (including a case to prevent another screen cracking!)

…for my first homeschool purchase since Tirzah Mae’s birth
We could pay $6 for shipping or $15 on another item to qualify for free shipping so Daniel asked if there was anything I wanted. I checked my list and didn’t really find anything, until, on a whim, I looked up the book I’ve been drooling over since I checked it out from the library: Dorling Kindersley’s Smithsonian History Year by Year. I expected it to be much too expensive (it’s hardcover and not a small book) – but, to my surprise, it was just under $19! I was getting ready to congratulate myself on not purchasing any homeschool materials since we’d been married, until I remembered that we’d stopped by a used store where I’d picked up an art text and a couple history books. I might be a compulsive homeschool shopper (and have been for the past 10+ years!)

…for adoption books
Mary Ostyn of Owlhaven recently hosted a giveaway of her book Forever Mom and Shannon Guerra of Copperlight Wood‘s Upside Down: Understanding and Supporting Attachment in Adoptive Families. Daniel and I have talked about adopting, would like to at some point, but don’t know much about the process at this point. I’m super excited to learn what these moms have to say about the process and how it works within existing families. (Sidenote: Do these books intrigue you? Shannon is hosting a giveaway of the same two – the giveaway is open until the morning of April 28, so go check it out!)

…for a heart-rending read
This one is a treasure that arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, but which I finished yesterday. It’s Stephanie Fast’s She is Mine – sent from Stephanie thanks to Carrie. I’ll be reviewing this soon – but for now, it’s enough to know that this book read like one of the best novels I’ve read in a long time – except that it’s not a novel, it’s an autobiography. It’s absolutely worth reading.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
~James 1:17 (ESV)

Thank you, Father, for these good gifts.

Yesterday felt like one of those awful, terrible, no-good days.

I got cavities filled on both sides of my mouth and my teeth ached for the rest of the day.

The realtor for one of the builders we wanted to interview contacted Daniel in the morning to see if we could meet that afternoon (I wanted to – well, I actually told Daniel to say no. I think it’s incredibly rude and unprofessional to expect someone to make plans on that short of notice. I had a dinner on the menu that required me to be in the house for a good part of the afternoon and really didn’t want to be disturbed. But I found some food in the freezer that I could thaw quickly and put in the crockpot, so we went ahead.)

I started messing around with one of the floor plans we’ve been looking at and lost most of the day with what ultimately turned out to be unproductive adjustments.

Our meeting with the builder didn’t give the information I sought and made me further annoyed with the realtor – and resulted in the conclusion that the house plan I like best would be basically unsellable in our community should we ever want to or need to move.

Furthermore, Tirzah Mae had a blow out while we were meeting with the builder and I was definitely not in the mood to deal with it once we got home. Instead, I sat on the couch with a bag of chips, moping and feeling bad about being a bad mother by letting my daughter sit in dirty clothes while I was pouting.

And then Jason showed up.

Jason who considers David Garcia (Daniel doesn’t bother to correct him) his friend.

Then again, he’d probably consider anyone who gives him tennis shoes and rides across town and meals at restaurants a friend.

Because Jason is homeless.

He asked for food and Daniel consulted with me. We invited him in, heated up some homemade pizza rolls, gave him a glass of milk.

He talked at us until 8 o’clock rolled around and Daniel had to tell him he’d need to finish up dinner quickly because we needed to get to bed. Truth is, we usually start preparing for bed long before that.

He left and I sprayed down the house to rid it of the peculiar odor of unwashedness and stale cigarette smoke. My petty complaints seemed so little when I looked at Jason.

I have people who love me, who delight in my presence. I have conversation, real conversation, with people who value my opinion and whose opinion I value. I have food and shelter and clothing that fits. I have a (relatively) clean toilet to relieve myself on and a sink to wash up. I can bathe or shower every day. I can hide from the sun when I want to, can seek out its warmth when it’s pleasing to me. I have food in abundance. I have a home and a clean bed to sleep in every night. I have options for travel – my feet, a bicycle, two cars. I have a mind not blown out by drugs. I have a marriage not destroyed by drugs.

And I have Jesus. Oh, of all the things I have that he lacks, this is the best, the most precious. Even if I were reduced to his level of poverty, I would still have Jesus. As he rambled his mostly incoherent fragments, rarely pausing for us to reply and interrupting us if we ever tried, I was reminded how thankful I am that I have Jesus.

Daniel and I got married five days before my 28th birthday – so I have a week of celebration in March!

This week I’m thankful…

…for gorgeous weather
The weather can’t have been nicer over the past week – and Tirzah Mae and I took full advantage when shopping last Thursday. We skipped the maze of construction (on all four streets at the corner of our shopping center) and walked from Aldi to Walmart for our groceries. The weather must have made others cheery too, because no less than 8 people stopped us during our excursion to comment on my sweet baby or ask about the MOBY wrap :-)

…for for birthday burgers
I signed up for Red Robin’s “Royalty”, which means I get a free burger the month of my birthday – and Daniel and I went to redeem it Saturday night. It’s always nice to have a night off cooking, even nicer when it means an evening of simply chatting with my beloved (without our computers or books or television or the laundry to distract).

…for Skyping with my sister-in-law
Debbie and I are reading together again (this time Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson’s Give Them Grace) and Skyping weekly to discuss. This week, we barely got to discussion, but it is always so wonderful just to chat with my former mentee turned friend turned sister-in-law (and since she’s expecting her third, this time she has stuff to teach me about mothering :-))

…for a lovely evening in
For our anniversary, I cooked one of Daniel’s favorite meals and set us up at the table with a tablecloth and everything. We sat Tirzah Mae in a bouncer beside us and she kept herself occupied the entirety of the meal (a VERY unusual occurrence – usually by dinner she’s pretty clingy and I eat with her on my lap).

…for crafty time
Tirzah Mae is not a good napper – I’m fortunate if she naps 15-30 minutes at a stretch during the day. (Although she is generally pretty good at going right back to sleep after night wakenings, so I’m not complaining about the naps.) Since she gets so fussy in the evening when her papa comes home, I’m trying to help her take a longer nap in the afternoons before he gets home. Yesterday, I laid down with her around 3:00 and she fell asleep for long enough for me to make her a lovey (she’s starting to want to grasp something while she’s eating or falling asleep or even just sitting somewhere, so I thought I’d oblige with what my family calls a “slicky” – a piece of satiny fabric, this one with tags for extra texture.)

…for anticipation of Pi[e] day
My birthday falls on Pi day every year – but this year is the Pi day to end all pi days, since it can be pi to the tenth significant digit (3/14/15 9:26:53). My sister will be in town and we intend to be eating pie at 9:26!

Life is starting to settle into comfortable patterns, signalling a return to some manner of normalcy. I don’t have big, earth-shattering things to give thanks for – but I am thankful for the ebb and flow of life, for seasons that come and go, for finding rhythms in each new season.

This week I’m thankful…

…for an afternoon off
Once a week, Daniel comes home early so I can go grocery shopping without Tirzah Mae. I breastfeed her, load up my books to return to the library, and head out on errands. While shopping itself is not my favorite tasks (except that I love cooking and love to be frugal, I’d probably hate shopping), I love the brief (or not so brief) visit I can make to the library before I shop. Those afternoons off, and especially the quiet of a book-filled library, do wonders for my soul.

…for connections
It’s taken a long while to get connected at our church. We love the preaching, the worship from the Word – but relationships have been difficult to establish. We still don’t have bosom friends there – but we are starting to develop friendships. Sunday reminded me of that as I had one conversation after another with acquaintances who are becoming friends.

…for turkey dinners
We were just bringing Tirzah Mae home at Thanksgiving, and neither of our families do turkey for Christmas – which means Daniel and I haven’t had a turkey dinner yet this fall/winter. But turkey’s were on super-sale following both of those holidays and I picked up a couple for our freezer. I cooked one on Monday and we’ve been eating from it ever since. Yum, yum.

…for a wonderful, beautiful, very-good day
Did you read about my Tuesday? A blessing from on high, that day was.

…for breastfeeding during shots
Tirzah Mae had her 2 month shots yesterday – a total of 3 pokes. When I first mentioned breastfeeding during administration to the doctor, he was pretty uncertain – he thought there’d need to be two people there to hold her and didn’t think everyone would fit around my breast. But when the nurse came in and it was just her, I asked again. “Sure,” she said, “doesn’t make any difference to me.” But it did make a difference for Tirzah Mae and I to be able to cuddle and breastfeed to comfort her before, during, and after those shots.

This newborn season has been a long one, filled with ups and downs – and I am so thankful that God has brought us through this long, hard newborn period. And now, as we enter the season of infant proper, I am thankful for the normalcy He’s wrought – and acknowledge His goodness whether the normalcy continues or a new challenge throws us off-kilter.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
…
He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11

Some of you may have noticed something wonky going on with bekahcubed over the past several days. That’s because bekahcubed was hacked – and I’ve been in the process of fixing it.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a fortuitous discovery
I was trying to figure out how to adjust blog posts to turn off search engine indexing (so I could make photo albums of Tirzah Mae unsearchable) – and one of the suggestions I found involved adjusting something in the blog header. I went off to my custom php header and found…code that I didn’t recognize. And since I coded my blog templates by hand, that’s a very bad thing. Finding it, though, is a very good thing. Because every day a hack goes unrecognized is another day a hacker can be wreaking havoc on your website.

…for tutorials for fixes
Fixing a hacked website can be an arduous process. Fixing a hacked website if it isn’t what you do for a living can be exhausting and confusing. Thankfully, some of the people who fix hacked websites for a living also write about how to do it – and make it plain so hobbyists like myself can fix their sites with relative ease. This post from Smackdown came in handy as I worked on closing any backdoors the hacker might have installed.

…for my dad taking time on his birthday to help me
It took me a while to realize that one massive portion of the fix would have to be done on the web hosting control panel. Which would mean my dad would have to finish the fix since he owns and manages menterz.com. Unfortunately, by the time I realized he would need to help, it was late at night the night before his birthday. So my birthday text included a request – could I call him about fixing my site? He obliged and spent part of the afternoon of his birthday adjusting passwords and making sure the database was clean.

…for a husband who reads my blog
I thought I had bekahcubed completely working again, having checked out the main page and seeing that everything was present. But my husband was reading and tried to look at the comments on my latest post – and discovered that all the pages other than the main page were giving 404 errors. He kindly let me know, I googled the problem and got it fixed. Yay!

It’s always eye-opening when my blog goes down. I find myself getting surprisingly anxious, feeling like I need to drop everything until it’s fixed. I come to realize just how bound up I am with these pages, how I feel like a part of my identity is missing if my blog isn’t intact.

A wise woman once said “My circumstances are not my life; Christ Jesus is my life.” And having my blog go down provides me with another reminder that “My blog is not my life; Christ Jesus is my life.”

Thank You, Lord, for the reminder – and for the reality.

“[Insert quote or Scripture]”
~[Insert source or Scripture reference]

It’s been an eventful year, a full past couple of months. I could write volumes on the adventure of pre-eclampsia, of bedrest, of a NICU stay. I could try to list the events for which I’m thankful, the people for whom I’m thankful, the ways God has been faithful throughout – and I will, but I’m aware that I could never come close to listing them all. I’ve been blessed beyond belief, such that I could never come close to giving thanks enough.

As my husband prayed at breakfast this morning, we have so much to be thankful for – for material blessings, for relationships, but most of all for Christ.

This week I’m thankful…

…for a last vacation
My blood pressure was high, I was swelling, pre-eclampsia was imminent – and Daniel’s family had already scheduled a vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia. My midwife gave the okay for us to go – after giving a list of warning signs to send me directly to the nearest emergency room and instructing me that this was to be a true take-it-easy-curl-up-and-read-a-book vacation.

Thank you, God, for a restful vacation before our long hospitalization. For how my in-laws adjusted their plans to my restrictions, dietary and otherwise. For my husband pushing me around the sights in a wheelchair. For a whirlpool tub in our room. For pool time with my nieces. For my sister-in-law taking pictures so I didn’t miss any shots (and so there are actually pictures of me on vacation, albeit in a wheelchair). For being able to visit with my bloggy friend and her family. For Davene and Jeff and Josiah and David and Tobin and Shav and Moriah. For Davene’s dad taking my blood pressure.

…for excellent care of the pre-eclampsia
The appointments were already set up before my vacation – one on Monday with my midwife, one on Wednesday with our OB. Things went quickly once they got going. The visit with the midwife confirmed what I’d suspected, protein in my urine. The visit with the OB sent me to the hospital. Once in the hospital, I received excellent care from a maternal-fetal specialist (who also gave me advice on raising bees), a collection of residents, and some very caring nurses.

Thank you, God, for Deidre’s care – and that she knew when to refer me up. For ending up at St. Joseph. For expectant management from Dr. Wolfe. For all the caring nurses. For the unexpected surprise of being cared for by an old friend, now a medical resident. For the switch to a postpartum room for the majority of our stay. For food that was okay, served by staff who were friendly. For good books to pass the time. For an uncomplicated c-section.

…for a healthy daughter
Tirzah Mae breathed room air from the day she was born. She needed a few days of bili lights, but had no serious complications of prematurity at all. She received excellent care as well, from the many wonderful neonatalogists, nurse practitioners, and nurses at the NICU.

Thank you, God, for a one-minute Apgar of 7. For nurses who cared for Tirzah Mae faithfully and involved us in her care. For those who helped us breastfeed, who trained us and updated us. For those who appreciated our daughter and let us know how special she is. For the neonatalogist who reminded me that God answers prayer. To the lactation nurses who encouraged and supported us.

…for family and friends
I can’t list how much we’ve been blessed by e-mails, texts, Facebook messages, cards, offers of assistance, gifts, prayers. We have been blessed to have a wonderful community who loves and cares for us.

I wish I had something deeply profound to close with – and I could surely list a dozen spiritual blessings that are far more profound than any of these earthly things. I am truly thankful for Christ, for the cross, for reconciliation with God, for adoption into the family of God… the list can go on and on. But today, just today, even though I can list a thousand blessings, one thing especially causes my heart to overflow with thankfulness.

Today I am thankful to God that

OUR TIRZAH MAE IS HOME!!!!!