unlikely

i have a cold. not bad. several kids have something also. sometimes just the feeling of children who are not healthy is overwhelming. a recurring diaper rash, a dog who seems to think the living room is the appropriate place to poop, a broken dishwasher . . . all these gnaw away at my shakey perceptions regarding my own competence.

i am pretty hormonal, but am getting used to it. not sure if the people i live with are, but maybe.

we are back to the state of the laundry room floor being about 2.5 feet deep in somewhat clean if rather wrinkled clothes. seems like the laundry room floor is my act-together-ometer. it is how one could measure my margins. it is the first thing to go on a long, ever-growing list. so for weeks i've been in that daily scrape-through-to-find-a-couple-roughly-matched-socks-and-a-pair-of-underwear-or-just-stay-in-pajamas-because-that's-the-next-best-thing-to-staying-in-bed-which-is-what-i-really-want-to-do-anyway state of mind.

i shouldn't really be measuring right now, though. until friday (5 days ago) we were blessed with visiting family off and on for nearly a Christmas month, i'm in my first trimester and i'm sick. being behind on laundry is completely appropriate.

what's not appropriate is giving up. because i have lots of hope. i have lots of joy. and i have a baby growing in my belly. how marvelous.

my cousin is pregnant. i'm excited. sometimes when someone gets pregnant that isn't married, which is her case, we don't know how to respond. but really, that's kind of mixed up thinking, to me. most of the time, when that happens, we already knew they were messing around. we knew the situation was not what we desire most for her. that isn't news. whatever our response was to that life shouldn't really manifest now. (i know that sometimes people find out someone's activity because of a pregnancy, but usually, for discerning people, we already knew there were goings on.)

the news now is a baby. that's wonderful. a baby is wonderful. to get mad now because she is having a baby is ridiculously poor timing. now is a time to rejoice. a baby means God chose to do a good thing in her. He is up to something for her good. He loves her tremendously. i've been praying for her and i'm excited to see what He will do through this new life.

a baby is never bad news. even when created in seemingly difficult or unfavorable circumstances, even when it isn't the way we would have planned it ourselves, even when the person is poor or sickly or unmarried or already has more than a dozen kids or has an incompetent cervix or an incompetent husband. when God makes a human soul, God Who sees the end from the beginning, God Who does what He pleases, God Who does not make mistakes ever, it is always good. always. good.

if God thought it was a good idea to place a child in the womb of my cousin who i love, who isn't married yet, whose future i do not know, but whose good i desire, i can and will greatly rejoice.

and if God thinks it is a great idea to put another little one in my womb and heart, even if we are sick and messy and all i want to eat is carbs and i just want to go back to bed for a week, i will also greatly rejoice.

God is big into unlikely heroes. not many wise, not many noble. He loves making something of nothing. He loves warriors hiding in winepresses, youngest sons out in the fields counted out by everyone else, unmarried virgins, women too old to bear children, Moabitess widows, harlots, tax collectors, stinky shepherds and pagan astrologers. and my beautiful cousin. and me. He's like that.