Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The makings of this blog...

This is my baby.
Already, she is six weeks old, even though she was (as I remember it) born yesterday. How this happened, I am not entirely sure, but in these very short six weeks God has found a way of showing us His presence through the life of our little one. Hence the name of the blog, When God Pinches Your Baby.
When thinking about welcoming a newborn into the world, how often do we mothers credit the one who actually created her (or him)... not nearly enough. My thoughts over these past few weeks have been entirely focused on the fact that I carried her for nearly nine months, I am the one who feeds her, bathes her, dresses her, changes her dirty diapers, and listens to her screams when she has a trapped gas bubble (with much appreciated help from others on occasion). Me. However, Psalm 139 does not give me this credit. Instead, it reminds me that I have not stopped nearly enough to praise God (the one who actually created her) for such a precious gift that he has blessed me with.
When this happens, and I become too comfortable taking all the praise for such a beautiful girl, he has a way of bringing me back to the place where I can't help but give him credit for my little princess.    
Last weekend, my husband, Jake, and I were experiencing car trouble (a circumstance that has happened all too often this year). This happened to be our first little car situation that Charlie was a part of. The car decided to die on Wednesday, while I had Charlie in the back seat. However, it died right in front of the camper that we are living in for the summer. Luckily, God brought us safely back to camp and we were not stranded (God moment number one). The next day, we had a couple people try to help us-- a friend even went to town to pick us up a new battery (God moment number two). The new battery worked very well, allowing us to go into town Friday night (Jake's night off). Our goal was a very quick trip to Hannaford to get a few groceries in order to make a nice, relaxing dinner together. Charlie was doing great in the store, until she decided it was time to eat, right then and there (a half-hour early)-- needless to say, her vocal chords work just fine. Jake offered to take her out to the car and driver her around the parking lot to calm her down until we could feed her while I finished in the check-out line (going for a ride normally lowers her volume). I hurriedly finish in the store knowing the baby was hungry and continued on through the automatic doors to wait outside for Jake to pull up the sidewalk...it starts to downpour and I see my husband approaching me soaking wet and on the phone a couple minutes later. The car had died again after a few minutes of driving around with Charlie. Had Charlie not started crying in the store, Jake would not have driven around the parking lot, and the car would have died on us half-way back to camp, leaving us stranded on the road (God moment number three). We had friends who were in town who were able to jump us, giving us enough juice to get to VIP across the parking lot. Their car was full, but they called a camp director and her and her husband quickly came to our rescue (God moment number four). When they found us, we were soaking wet, stranded, and had a little one who had just finished eating, but was not quite content yet. The couple suggested that we take the car to a mechanic they trusted and proceeded to help us get the car there (God moment number five) even though it took a couple pit stops to bring our car back to life along the way. They also let us borrow their Jeep for the weekend (God moment number six).
As Jake and I were sitting in our camper-home, making a much delayed dinner, we were talking about how we all too often short change God and all he has done for us, especially in the little things. We then began to point out all of the God moments in the midst of our little car extravaganza and I jokingly stated that I bet Charlie wasn't actually hungry in the grocery store, but instead that God had pinched her-- which led to our car dieing in the parking lot rather than in the road on our return to camp. After we laughed for a few minutes about our eventful night, I decided that I wanted to start a blog entitled... "When God Pinches Your Baby." Here, I can use words (and thoughts) to describe the events, journeys, adventures, etc. of our life as a small family... all of which God has his hand in (even if that hand is pinching your little one).