To My Speck.

I saw you today for the first time.

So tiny. Not even the size of the end of my pinky. So incredibly tiny.

The doctor said you’re not a baby yet. I’d have to wait for two more weeks before I’d know if I was truly pregnant. She said you’re just a “thing” growing in my uterus.

I know better.

When I saw you, I didn’t see a speck. I saw a tiny little baby, planted by God Himself. You literally look like God placed you right into my body. Your father and I had nothing to do with it. God made you. And He gave you to us.

I keep thinking about how God has said that He has written down our times “when as yet there were none.” He knows who you will be, what you will do, what you will look like, when you will rebel against us, and when you will make the decision to accept Him as your Savior. He knew you and everything about you before we even knew you existed.

God has carefully formed you. At this moment, when the doctor thinks that you’re just a “thing”, you have everything you need to grow into an adult. Nothing will be added. Nothing will be taken away. You are complete. Perfectly whole. Exactly how God wants you to be. All you need to do now is grow.

So, grow, my little one. Grow to be who God wants you to be. Grow to be a healthy little human being. Grow carefully. Grow safely. We’ll protect you.

We love you so much more than we could express. We’ve prayed for you, my tiny one. We’ve prayed so hard. But, we realize, now more than ever, that you are not ours to hold onto. You are a precious gift from God that we gladly give back to Him so He can use you however He wants.

Oh, my tiny one, I can’t wait to see you. To hold you. To give you a name and tell you about this wonderful, marvelous God that took the time to make you. He loves you more than we do. You are so precious. So, so special.

Grow, my tiny one. We’ll see you very soon.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

February 4, 2010

Baby Biegert, Week 7

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Ah, Jimmy Choo.

For some reason, for years now, I’ve promised myself that one day, I would own a pair of Jimmy Choo’s.

I like the ones in the picture. Brian calls them hooker shoes. But, he calls everything hooker shoes, so I no longer care about his opinion. 😉

I looked up the Jimmy Choo website and it said it automatically figured out my currency. They put me in euros. Peruvian Nuevo Soles are not euros. By any stretch of the imagination. Just imagine what the exchange rate would be since it’s basically three soles to the dollar right now. Jimmy Choos are incredibly expensive. I no longer think I’ll be getting any, at least not on our salary, any time soon. But, it’s a nice dream.

Looking at the Jimmy Choo stuff and then reading blogs about simple life on ranches made me start being quite contemplative. I thought looking at Jimmy Choos would make me discontent. Instead, it made me happy to have the life I do. I’ve been reading a lot of design blogs recently, too, and even though I love them and I think they have a lot of amazingly beautiful ideas – none of them will ever happen in my home. And yet, it doesn’t depress me. It makes me quite satisfied with what I do have.

So, what do I have? Nothing designer, but I do have…

*I’ve been trying to upload pictures and nothing is working, so you’ll have to just deal with word pictures. Third World internet, what can I say?*

• a beautiful, red bathroom that reminds of all the colors of fall. I don’t know when/if I’ll ever experience a true Northern Hemisphere fall again (my favorite time of year), so I love that my bathroom has all those colors in it.
• unique coffeetable and end tables. Never seen anything like them and they were custom-made. Dark wood, glass tops; I love them.
• nice countertops that, believe it or not, match my sister’s countertops in Vermont. They make my kitchen look finished, even though I still don’t have cabinet doors. They’re just so pretty.
• four new pairs of sandals from Brazil. They may not be Jimmy Choos, but how many people can say they got Brazilian sandals for $5 while in the jungle? And they’re unique and cool and lightweight and pretty… they may even be better than Jimmy Choos, especially since my husband doesn’t think of them as hooker shoes!
• the prettiest hammock on the market. This I’ll have to get a picture of for you. We’re still trying to find hooks so we can hang it up. I’d rather not hang it up in my living room because our house is filled with children during the year and it’s not a toy, but I’m afraid it’d get used like a toy. It’s brown, lightweight material with pretty, white flowers woven through it and white braided rope that it hangs on. Brian found it in a street market in Iquitos for the equivalent of about $10 and it’s like no other hammock I’ve ever seen. Gorgeous. I can’t wait to hang it up and just lounge in it, reading and sleeping… ah, bliss.

Maybe I won’t ever own my Jimmy Choos. Maybe I’m not “Susie Home Maker” and I can’t sew my own clothes and purses or can food and grind wheat. But, I like my life. I like what God has blessed me with and I’m content even though I don’t have…

~finished floors. We walk on plywood still because we just can’t quite seem to raise enough to finish our floors. Someday, we’d like to put tile or something down. Hopefully within the next few months.

~curtains on the upstairs windows. We actually have curtains for one room, but have never found rods, so we haven’t hung them up yet. Our bedroom has a borrowed curtain strung up with a wire, on one window. I’d like to get curtains, but again, we need to be able to afford them.

~our own furniture. Almost everything is borrowed except a few choice items. I’d like a sectional sofa; I think it’d fit our downstairs perfectly. They are somewhat affordable, but again, we need the funds. Right now, our seating consists of five chairs that Brian needs to work on fixing and a loveseat-type couch that’s borrowed. Not very conducive to guests. Our living room looks… empty.

~screens on my windows. We’re getting bombarded with bugs at night and birds in the morning. It’s frustrating to hang my laundry up to dry, inside, upstairs, and still end up with bird doo on them. Brian bought the screen. Now if he could just find time to build the frames and install them.

~cable. I know that’s trivial, but I would love to get local (and international) news… and watch Rachael Ray. I know, superficial again, but she was really the only talk show I enjoyed(NOT her cooking show… sorry, but her talking to herself gets obnoxious)  and I love duplicating her recipes with cheaper (more normal) ingredients.

~Nutella. You ever had Nutella? If you haven’t, you should. It’s hazelnut, chocolate goodness that you can spread on bread. A staple in Montreal. For some reason, I’ve been craving Nutella like there’s no tomorrow. I saw it sitting on top of the fridge in an episode of “Friends” this week and that’s all I can think about. Then I saw it on a blog featuring a recipe by Giada… pound cake with Nutella and strawberries, cookied like a panini. WOW. I think I just drooled a little.

There’s a taste of life in Peru. The things we have, the things we don’t have, the things we live without. Regardless of this entire blog, though, the good and the bad – I must admit, I’ve never been more content in my life.

Jimmy Choos or no Jimmy Choos, furniture or no furniture, I am where God put me and I am glad to be here.

My Bible.

When we lived in South Dakota the first year, we lived in a tiny apartment. The lady a few doors down from us took some getting used to. We learned she had some skin issues, so most of her skin was patchy and red, if it was there at all. She was the tiniest, skinniest woman I’ve ever seen in my life. She didn’t smell good and her apartment smelled worse.

Over time, we began to realize she was incredibly lonely. We would make a point of always greeting her until one day, she finally greeted us. We brought her a plate of goodies for Christmas and she told us that would be her only Christmas gift that year. That’s when I knew she needed a friend. We brought her flowers for Valentine’s Day and she cried. I began making a point of conversing with her on a regularly basis… and that’s when we found out she was an alcoholic. Not a closet alcoholic or social drinker alcoholic. An alcoholic who was told by her doctor that her liver was shutting down and she had just a couple months to live if she didn’t quit.

I began spending more time with her. I’ve never met anyone who was more hopeless. No family. No friends. No job. Just her cigarettes, her TV, and and her alcohol. Her skin was literally wasting away. Her hair was falling out. She hadn’t bathed in probably months, if not years. I have no idea what she ate, if she ate at all. It’s a wonder she didn’t have a car wreck considering she was never sober, but drove fairly often.

I slowly shared Christ with her because she could not comprehend how I was happy and content with life. I pulled out my Bible and read to her. I prayed with her. I counseled her as best I could considering I was 22, newly married, and never dealt with an alcoholic before. I drove her to church. I just sat and listened to her. I let her “play” my piano when she was drunk out of her mind and didn’t want to be alone. I let her cry.

I gave her my Bible.

I had a Bible that was given to me when I graduated high school. I used it all through Bible school and wrote all over the inside cover pages different truths/songs/verses that spoke to me. I took copious notes through Bible school in the margins so I couldn’t read through Romans without having most of my class notes with me. The cover was falling off. It was my Bible. Do you have one of those? One of those Bibles that is truly yours – your notes, your thoughts, your personal writings between you and God? There’s nothing else like it.

On a whim, I gave it to her. She needed a Bible that was not KJV so she could finally understand what she was reading. She needed notes and this Bible had my notes and its own study notes. She needed something and this was the best thing I could think to give her. So, I did.

We moved a few months later and I only saw her twice after that. She was always holed up in her apartment when I’d drive by our old place. I lost touch with her. And then we moved out of the state….and out of the country. And I have no idea what happened to her.

I wish I did. I wish I knew where she was and how she was doing. I wish I knew if my gift had been in vain or not. I hold to the truth that God’s Word will never return void, even in the hands of a raging alcoholic who couldn’t see straight enough to walk across a room. God’s Word can change lives. I wonder if it changed hers?

Every now and then I still think of that Bible. I miss it and wish I had held onto it. And then this morning, I realized that the Bible I have now is filled with my notes. Not Bible school notes. Not quotes from people I was taught by. It’s filled with notes that God has taught me personally. This is my own study Bible; all notes written by yours truly thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, my pastor, and a few teachers. Maybe it’s not as filled yet, but it’s getting there. And it means more because it truly is mine.

I wish I knew what happened to her and my Bible.

So, my advice? Take good notes. You never know who’s going to need your Bible more than you do.

So good to me.

My biggest embarrassing flaw is my ease at getting motion sick. It’s something I’ve struggled with my entire life and seems to be something that runs in my family. It seemed to dissipate when I was in college, but right before I got married, it reappeared and has been with me ever since. At times, it’s bad enough that I don’t want to travel anywhere if I can’t do the driving myself. Other times, I’m fine and can even read in the car. I used to love flying, but as the feeling of sickness has increased over the years, my joy of flying has diminished. Greatly. I want so badly to love flying like I used to, but lately, I just can’t bring myself to.

On our way home from Iquitos, I was not able to take Dramamine, my cure-all medicine for motion sickness. Even with it, I tend to get queasy, but at least it eases most of the symptoms. I was utterly terrified to travel Saturday night. Shaking, crying – terrified of traveling. The flight was to be an hour and a half and then it’s a good two hour drive from the airport to home, in South American traffic. I was literally in tears before leaving the home in Iquitos.

I wrote friends asking for prayer. And then Brian and I prayed frequently and specifically before the flight began.

Before getting on the plane, I told God to just take the fear. To hold my stomach, my head, my nerves and to just take whatever feelings are not from Him away because I did not want them. By the time I boarded, I was no longer shaking and my stomach had settled considerably.

I closed my eyes, relaxed… and basically fell asleep.

One song in particular flooded my mind:

“You are so good to me, You heal my broken heart, You are my Father in heaven… You are beautiful my sweet, sweet song… and I will sing again…”

Over and over this song rang through my mind. When the flight got bumpy and I started to feel bad, this song rose in volume and covered it all.

An hour and a half later, we landed smoothly. My husband and our two friends complained of queasy stomachs and headaches from a horrendously bumpy flight. I had fallen asleep. I hadn’t even noticed that it was bumpier than usual.

God is so good to me.

So good to me.

It may sound like such a simple thing, but for me, it was the world. It was such a huge triumph – something only God can do. I wanted to get off the plane and shout it to the world! This was an extremely personal miracle and I couldn’t wait to share it with people.

God is personal. God is mine. God is good.