Because of the cross,

because Jesus took all of my sin on Himself,

because He arose victorious,

because He defeated death and the grave,

I am made new.

Not fixed, not cleaned up, not improved upon.

New.

And spotless, without blemish, holy, righteous, perfect.

Even if I see a thousand things in me arguing why that can’t possibly be true, it is true nonetheless.

What an amazing, powerful, loving God He is, that He would be made sin for me, so that I could be made righteous before Him.

Words can’t describe how thankful I am.

Some memories from birthdays past…

:: The first birthday I remember was either my fourth or fifth birthday.  I got a pretty purple and white bonnet and little-girl purse.  I loved them.  I also seem to remember my parents painting the room we were in as I opened the gifts.

::  When I turned 6, I asked my mom if I could have a birthday party…like the day before my birthday.  We had moved to a new home, a new school, only a couple months before so I didn’t really know anyone, but my mom called the parents of most of the kids in my class to invite them to a party the next day.  I think five or six of them came and I was happy for that, but at the end of the day, I remember feeling like I had imposed greatly on these people that didn’t know me…and I was amazed that my mom did something [that I thought was] so scary like calling up people she didn’t know for me.

:: For my tenth birthday, I got my hair cut – above shoulder length, with poofy bangs.  And I requested and received a meatball sub for dinner.  Obviously, my sophisticated taste started early.

:: My twelfth birthday was only a few days before Easter, so I took my birthday money and bought Easter candy for my siblings, since my parents didn’t have money for candy.  I was sick Easter morning, but I got up early and, with one of my brothers, divided the candy into bowls (we didn’t have baskets) and hid them around the house.  Best thing I ever did with birthday money.

:: On my fourteenth birthday, a friend (who wasn’t a Christian) gave me a mug that had a little cartoon on it and the caption “God, kicking some serious butt on Jeopardy”.  It was funny, and it mattered to me that I had managed to communicate what I believed without being offensive…if that makes sense.  I think I still have the mug.

:: When I turned sixteen, nobody wished me happy birthday until my Mom got home from work at 5pm.  My sister and I ate lunch together at school that day and she didn’t remember.  I was obviously upset, so she asked what was wrong.  I replied with “if you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you”.  Yeah, I was mature like that.  I am probably still mature like that, sometimes.

:: The next year, my sister felt bad.  She was away at college, but happened to be on her way to Albany (I think?) on my birthday with a friend, so she took a detour to our house to drop off a gift for me.

:: On my nineteenth birthday, I was at college.  The temperature was 80 degrees.  A friend made me lunch and strawberry shortcake (my all-time favorite dessert).

:: For my twentieth birthday, a group of friends threw me a surprise party…under the guise of going shopping, but needing to stop at someone’s apartment to get something.  I was a little suspicious, but thankful for the effort.  I was bothered, though, that Tim chose to go to a rugby game instead of be around for my birthday.  This was when he was pursuing me and I was realizing that my heart toward him had changed.  I think I told him that night, once he was back from his game, how I felt.

:: My roommates threw me a little party on my twenty-first birthday.  I had strawberry shortcake again.  Is it weird I remember food better than other things?

:: My twenty-second birthday was the first as a married lady.  Tim left flowers for me in my car, to be discovered when I got out of work.  My boss also let me leave work a little early.

:: On my twenty-third birthday, I was at a new-ish job.  I got a very noticeable run in my stockings early on in the day.  I made a huge mistake on payroll.  I think my mother-in-law called me at work to wish me a happy birthday.  I don’t remember anything else…just the important stuff.

:: I had my twenty-fourth birthday off of work (a nice perk of my job at the time).  Tim and I went to lunch…I had a honey mustard chicken sandwich.  He had to work late that night, though, so I went out to dinner with his mom.  We went to Red Lobster, but I don’t remember what I ate.  I guess my memory is starting to go in my old age.

::  Caedmon was not yet 2 months old on my twenty-fifth birthday.  I remember nothing from the first 3 months of his life except lots of walking with a crying baby in the middle of the night.

:: My twenty-seventh birthday was the worst ever.  I was alone in a hospital room for most of the day, recovering from my second unwanted c-section.  My baby girl was in the NICU and I didn’t know for sure whether she would live.  Tim was at home most of the day with a fever, Caedmon had hives all over his body – a reaction from an antibiotic given after he had a peanut removed from his lung a week earlier.  But, I did get a mini birthday cake from the hospital with my lunch.

:: I don’t remember twenty-eight or twenty-nine.  My thirtieth birthday, I remember getting chocolates.

:: I got a pair of earrings with Elijah’s birthstone for my thirty-first birthday.  This was normally Tim’s Mother’s Day gift for me, but I guess he didn’t want to wait that year.

:: For my thirty-second birthday, I had told Tim I didn’t want anything, and meant it…and he believed me, and I was hurt.  We ended up going out to dinner, where he’d had flowers delivered and waiting at our table.  Sometimes my rational side and my emotional side don’t agree and cause problems.

:: The day before my thirty-third birthday, Holly drove here from Michigan to surprise me, and brought me a hyacinth plant and took me out to breakfast on my birthday.  Then, we (me, Tim, the kids and Holly) went out to lunch.  Tim made me strawberry shortcake.

::  Every birthday that I have had as an adult, my mom has called me in the morning to wish me a happy birthday.

:: Tim has attempted some sort of birthday cake most years.

…and I think that exhausts my birthday memories.

Seven years ago, Bethany made her entrance into the world.  It was a hard day, followed by a few more really hard days.  I can remember two things that brought me peace during a time that was anything but peaceful.  The first was a line of the song In Christ Alone that I had heard while in labor that stuck with me through those days…”from life’s first cry, to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny”.  The second was what God spoke to my heart over and over and over again…”she’s not yours, she’s Mine”.

When I couldn’t hold her or touch her or feed her, when I was told she might not live, there was such comfort in knowing that her life was in God’s hands, not anyone else’s.  But, while some of those moments seemed agonizingly long, in 10 days she was home and all issues were resolved.  It is sometimes easy for me to forget the heartache of those moments, but I have often reminded myself of those promises that I clung to so fiercely.

As she has grown, that hope [confident expectation] that God will work in her life even in spite of my insufficiency has continued to bring me peace.  In a lot of ways, I think the person that God made Bethany to be – strong-willed, stubborn, tenacious – helped her get through those first few days of life as well as she did…and I think those traits can be of great value to God as she learns to temper them and bring the under His authority and direction.  But, in the meantime, raising her has had lots of challenges and failings and more moments than I can count of praying for God to do the work in her that I/we clearly were not cut out to do.

Through these seven years we have seen Him working in her heart, to begin to reign in her iron-will, but also to bring out other wonderful qualities that make her unique and beautiful.  She is compassionate and forgiving and generous and joyful.  She is curious and brilliant and creative and (mostly) fearless.  She still has trouble walking in a straight line (funny, but entirely true), but can do a perfect cartwheel.  She is exuberant in most things she does, and though she sometimes struggles with discouragement in difficult tasks, with encouragement (or, sometimes, reprimand) she will keep trying until she succeeds. I am thankful for God’s working in her life, and for the depth of character that He is establishing in her.  She is a blessing and a joy to our family, and we love her so.

There was a word of encouragement this morning at church about God’s love. It was more detailed than what I can recall at the moment, but that’s not really important to what I want to say.  What is important is that I know that if I had heard this particular word at any point in my life, even up to a few months ago, I would have had tears streaming down my face.  Instead, I found myself a bit taken aback by my certainty that this word, this time, was for someone else and not for me.

As I heard the exhortation that God was wanting someone, or possibly many someones, to believe in His love for them personally, I took an inventory of my own heart.  Instead of finding doubt and fear at the thought that God could love me, do you know what I found?  I found assurance, confidence, certainty in His love for me.  I was kind of stunned.  There have been times in the past when I thought I was sure – times when I would have said that I knew – but even in those times, hearing someone else say it would have brought to the surface all of the reasons why I thought I really shouldn’t trust His love.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that this is the first time in my entire life – the first time –  when there’s been no question, no hesitation.

I can’t pinpoint any one thing that made the difference in my heart.  There was no singular moment of hearing it and just finally believing.  It has been God faithfully pursuing me, answering me, reminding me, pouring out His love to me in my most undeserving moments.  It has been a winnowing out of the truth from the lies I have been prone to believe.  It has been Him challenging me to believe His word…what it says about who He is, and what it says about who I am.

And it is an answer to prayer, this knowing that God loves me.  There is a yielding in me where there was once only resistance.  I don’t feel like I am fighting Him anymore.  I trust Him and His goodness to me, even when I don’t understand.  I can rest in His love.

So, I am thankful.  I am thankful for the word today that wasn’t for me, but somehow, still was.  I am thankful for years of not knowing that make knowing so much more meaningful.  I am thankful for an eternally good and faithful God.  I am thankful that He loves me.  And I am thankful that I know.  So very, very thankful.

I am dust.  The only life in me is what God breathes in by His mercy each moment.  The only good in me is that which God, in His creativity and power, can bring to bear in this otherwise unlovely, unremarkable, incapable stuff that I am.

And He is the only One who can decide what is good.

I may want to be something beautiful and graceful – intricate in form and prized by others, but if He instead makes me something ordinary, utilitarian, stored in a closet or garage rather than set on display, I need to trust that the form He gave me has value to Him.

Maybe, someday, there will be a blizzard, and I will be happy to be a snow shovel instead of a precious gem.   Maybe.

I am almost finished reading The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.  Truthfully, I have been reading it for about 2 years.  I think I even started over because I went so long without reading it at one point.  But, I love it.  I actually think it may even top my all-time favorite, Mere Christianity. 

It is rare for me to read a book and actually feel uplifted and encouraged by it.  Often, “Christian” books leave me feeling condemned, not good enough, and like I am an utter failure.  So, why is this book so different? I wondered.  But I didn’t wonder for long, because the answer was really very clear.  This book was about God, not about me.  Instead of telling me about all of the things I should or should not be doing to be a “good Christian”, this book reminded me, over and over, and in great detail and forcefulness, of who God is.

See, I have learned something about myself over the past few years, and it is this: the thing that will best affect change for the better in my life is a closer relationship with the Lord.  It probably sounds simplistic, but it is a truth that has anchored my soul when my head is sent spinning by all of the advice and suggestions and implications that come from other well-intentioned Christians.

I’ve begun to read most books and listen to most ideas with one thought underpinning my response: is it Bible?   Not, is it unbiblical?…because I have found that there is a vast sea of thought that is not unbiblical that still does not have the right to stand next to the Bible, or even anywhere near, in my heart.  Yet, somehow, we as Christians (maybe we as people?) tend to elevate certain ideas to a place of being above reproach when, really, that spot should be reserved for God and His Word alone.  We can read a book, or hear someone share, or observe a method and think that anything short of complete conformity is failure.

It’s not that the ideas are bad, but I am not the same as the person for whom some practice worked wonders.  I am not called to necessarily speak the same, minister the same, raise my children the same, interact the same, love my husband the same, keep my home the same, worship the same, prioritize the same, fellowship the same as anyone else…unless the Bible clearly says so.

So, how do I decide what God has called me to in a given area?  I get to know Him – more deeply, more certainly, more personally.  I seek His face.  I meditate on Him.  I read His Word.  And I find life.  Such LIFE!  His Spirit renews and reveals and reminds.  He convicts and strengthens and guides.  I feel like words fail me when I try to describe the difference that drawing near to the Lord makes in my heart and mind.  When I draw near to Him, He draws near to me…and that intimacy fills me with such love for Him that it feels like I will burst.  He is an amazing God.  Incomprehensibly good and holy and faithful and powerful.

So, tell me about Him.  Tell me how awesome He is.  Remind me over and over again of what the Bible says.  Help me to see Him more clearly.  Direct my gaze to Him and His perfection, instead of to myself and my ever woefully imperfect efforts to be anything good.  Trust me, keeping my focus on Him will make more of a difference in my life than anything else ever could.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.—2 Peter 1:3 (emphasis mine)

…this morning I looked up the lyrics for, and sang to my children, “I Lost My Poor Meatball”.  As you can see, I am giving my kids a very cultured upbringing ;).

…I have started drinking coffee almost daily this past month or so.  I never thought I would see this day, and I’m thinking that once warm weather hits, it will become mere history…but for now, a hot cup of coffee with copious amounts of sugar is very appealing on cold, gray mornings after what have often been less-than-restful nights.

…the room that houses my treadmill is a work-zone at the moment, so exercise has become much more sporadic.  Okay, so my lack of energy may also have something to do with it.  The temperature outside today is pretty well perfect for running, though, so maybe I can find motivation for that.  We’ll see.

…When I painted the master bedroom more than 2 years ago, I missed a spot (well actually, I did a spot poorly and there are white spots showing through).  I am determined to rectify that this week.  Better late than never, right?

…I have started ironing clothes.  I was never taught to iron and it honestly always seemed like so much effort for so little reward.  But wrinkled collars and hems started to bother me, so I convinced Tim that I needed an ironing board (which was a longer process than one might think, due to personality differences) and set it up in my bedroom.  It’s not the most aesthetically pleasing possibility, but it’s convenient, which is the difference between success and failure at this point.  Maybe someday it will become enough of a habit that I can tuck it away in an unseen corner and still get it done.  But that day is not yet here.  Baby steps, I guess.

…I love Ava’s blue eyes and long, dark eyelashes.  I have always wished God had given me blue eyes instead of  brown, but I guess getting to admire my daughter’s is the next best thing.  And I think she’s already figuring out how to use it to her advantage.

…My children are learning to wash dishes.  Some people may think that this is a task that could have been taught before now.  But since we have no dishwasher, and really, really clean dishes is one thing that I am semi-neurotic about, I am even now having a difficult time trusting that they can be as careful and attentive as I would like.  So, I have a learning curve here, too…learning to be consistent in inspecting, learning to be patient in correcting, learning to discern the line between carelessness and honest mistakes.  Not my favorite lessons, honestly, but necessary, I suppose.

And that is some of the randomness of life these days.  Nothing short of riveting, right?

For weeks my kids have been playing “restaurant” – imagining menus, practicing with play food, setting up blankets and laundry baskets in their room to be their dining room.  This past week, they even made a menu on the computer and printed it out.  Tim and I have been the recipients of many “do you want to try this?” requests of their imaginary creations, and “do you want to come to our restaurant?” pleas, when…honestly?…playing pretend is about the furthest thing from enjoyable for me.  But, I have half-heartedly given in, sort of secretly hoping that the end of this phase would come sooner rather than later.

Yesterday, though?  Yesterday I didn’t want to play. Yesterday, after watching my kids excitedly running around setting up their restaurant yet again, when I was asked I said no.  I can be pretty heartless, I know.  I saw their dejected faces as they left the room and I sighed.  I thought about how much I don’t like this part of being a parent.  You know…the part when I need to sacrifice what I prefer for the much greater good of showing my kids that they are valued and loved.  More times than not, after seeing their disappointment, I would have shrugged it off with some lame excuse of them needing to learn that things can’t always go their way…which is true, but it should never be because their mom’s being selfish.

This time, though, I was convicted.

I asked them how they would like to play restaurant with real food.  I saw the giddiness such a simple thought brought them.  And I proceeded to instruct them in how to prepare dinner for Tim and me (and them, too, but they were just eating at home…not at “The Ruehle’s Italian Restaurant”).

(I suppose this would have been a great time to instruct in utensil placement, but I guess that will have to happen another day)

Since Italian was not on my menu for the evening, some improvisation was necessary.  What we ended up with?  Our version of chicken parmesan…dino chicken nuggets with homemade marinara sauce and a combination of cheddar and parmesan cheese…served over spaghetti, with salad and garlic bread.

They set the table with candles and cloth napkins.

They pretended to be waiters, gave us menus and took our orders.  They served our food and cleared our dishes.  We “tipped” them with Hershey’s kisses.

It made their day.  And it was a small victory for me…over selfishness, over laziness, over heartlessness.  These kids are so precious to me, but I sometimes forget that they need me to show them.  Still, I will trust in God’s faithfulness to continue the work He’s begun in me…and to work in my kids’ lives in spite of my imperfections.  He is a good God, and these kids are an amazing gift.

My baby is 6 months old today.  Half a year.

:: She is officially crawling as of a few days ago, though I anticipate her inch-worm technique will be favored for a while still.

:: She has short stints of happily exploring or playing, but as has been the case for all of her short life so far, her preferred place to be is in my arms.  This is at once very endearing and extremely tiring, since she thinks that she can go anywhere and do anything while being held…and though she is petite in appearance, she is built like a brick and it honestly requires great effort to keep her from diving head-first over my shoulder or from doing a back-flip out of my arms.

:: What little hair she has is all growing at the crown of her head, and all three inches of it is almost always sticking straight up.  I love it.

:: She will stare at a person until they look at her and smile, then (and usually only then) she smiles back.  It seems to be a fun game for her.

:: She still can’t roll from her back to her front.  She really won’t even try.  I’m not worried (actually, I appreciate that I can still lay her down and know she won’t go anywhere), but I do wonder what it will take for her to finally make a real effort.

:: She laughs a lot, cries a little, and has a firm grasp on everyone’s heart strings around here.  I am so blessed by my baby girl.

Today I am going on about 2 hours of sleep.  Yesterday, it was about 4 hours.  Ava wouldn’t let me put her down for very long either night.  She has been congested and teething and, at night, will only sleep in my arms…and restlessly at that.

But God has been merciful to me.  Despite the lack of sleep, my sore throat and congestion that had been threatening to become a full-blown cold have instead begun to fade away.  The mornings that greeted me with dizziness and a body aching with exhaustion (have I mentioned that I do not handle lack of sleep well?) have given way to days of slow, but consistent productivity.

As is often the case in my life, I have found that, when my strength fails, God reminds me that in my weakness He is made strong.  He renews and upholds and breathes life in a very real and tangible way.  I am so thankful that this day matters to Him, that He sees my need and responds with a grace that only becomes more glorious as I reach the end of myself.  His goodness still takes me by surprise.