thank you God

This has been a week of blessings for the Haub household.

Doug and I were given two really great tickets for the L.A. Philharmonic--I have been dying to get inside the Walt Disney concert hall since moving here! We actually ended up not being able to go but the gift meant the world to us.

A friend dropped by last night unannounced to drop off dinner for us--the food was enough to take care of us for two days!

Last night I called our dear friend who baby-sits Mercy for us to ask her if she could come over for a couple of hours this morning so that I could clean my house for my company that arrives tonight. After giving Mercy two wonderful hours at the park, she refused to let me pay her for her time and told me she was "helping out."

This week I have had three good friends come over to the house to spend time with me. With each of these women I have shared honestly about my struggles and questions around being here.

Today Doug finally placed the order for his new guitar, something made possible by financial gifts from three unrelated sources. Only ninety days before our third "baby" arrives :)

Our good friends brought their first child, a beautiful baby boy, home last night after a few days in the NICU.

And tonight we welcome dear family and friends who are here from Oregon for the weekend to help us celebrate Aaron's baptism.

At night Mercy and I have a ritual where we "thank God". I go through the day and we thank God for all the different things we did that day, the people we encountered, food we ate, toys we enjoyed, places we went, etc. We also thank God for the special people in our lives. It's funny but I don't think of it as praying, though as I write this I realize that it is pretty obvious that that's what it is. It has always felt more like this fun recap of our day's adventures. I hope that it teaches her to live with gratitude. I think it is teaching me to stop more often and examine my days and weeks like I have done here tonight.

Thank you God.

Let the little children come

Mercy picked up her pink guitar today and started singing. It was impressive not because of the volume (though I must say the girl's got some lungs), nor her little performer's stance, nor the dramatic facial expressions she was making which could have landed her a spot on Idol for sure. What grabbed me were her "lyrics". As she sang, a not-so-simple word continued emerging: "alleluia". Over and over again, her little mouth formed that word as she strummed her guitar with passion.

You might think we must be a really holy household to have our eighteen-month-old daughter singing her "alleluias" already; but I have to confess that there are a lot of other words she hears with much greater frequency. At first I thought, well, she hears her daddy planning worship every week, or she must have picked that up in church, but she spends most Sundays in the nursery (as do I lately) and Doug rarely practices through the worship set until after she is in bed. Was it the four weeks of intensive Hebrew I got through while she was in utero???

We have had a little bit of drama in our household the past few weeks over our decision to have our son, Aaron, baptized. In our multi-cultural church context, the issue of infant baptism is a hot one and our Latino pastor is more than aware of the potential cost of celebrating this as part of our church life. Mercy was baptized almost a year ago and our pastor got a lot of flak--one new family even left the church.

Doug and I are clearly in the minority in our congregation, even among the Anglos, and so many of our peers here don't at all understand our position on this. As a lifelong (and current) member of the Evangelical Covenant church, I never thought I would be in a place where I had to explain myself so many times over, or fight for a theological freedom I have grown to assume. It is not her baptism that saves her; only Christ can do that. That is true at nine months, nine years, or ninety years of age! And like Israel she will be saved not because she is strong or mighty or good or beautiful, not because of her righteousness or faithfulness, but simply because God, in his goodness and grace, chooses her.

I guess this morning watching a little girl strum a pink guitar, it all seemed so very simple. God's grace in my little girl's life is pure gift, as it is for all of us. And part of God's grace to her is the provision of parents, Godparents, and a church family who are committed to helping her learn the language of worship, in word and in deed. I do not believe that she understands the meaning of her song yet. But it is my job, and the church's job, to help her do just that.