Thanks for coming, everyone. We want to celebrate a little girl turning one this week. Thanks in advance for all your contributions to Edie’s toy kitchen. She loves it already; I’m so excited for when she can actually bring me fake tea, then real tea! I’ve always had the suspicion that some people have kids so they can stay seated while children run around to get them food and drinks. I can’t imagine why I would think that. Lastly, thanks for everyone’s support. As you’ll hear over the next few minutes, we needed a lot of it this year.
After pulling out all the stops to get Edie out of her momma’s belly, Chelsea awoke with a start right at midnight of May 22. Her contractions were two minutes apart, so we waited a couple hours to make sure it was time. Once at the hospital, we found out that Edie would be joining us that day, and that Chelsea was progressing quickly. Three centimeters by 3:30am, 7 centimeters by 5am. She wisely opted for the epidural, and it eventually became time to push. Well, Edie was enjoying her time in her momma’s belly. A nurse said we’d have a chance with a vacuum since Edie needed to be turned just a bit before she could come out. The doctor said three contractions and no more; then we would do a C-section. I was praying through these three pushes, praying hard. Long story short, she came out on the push after the third contraction. God provided in this moment for real because Chelsea had lost a lot of blood during this part. She had to wait a bit before being moved to the recovery room. Thanks be to God for providing us with a happy, healthy baby girl. And He would still provide for her once she was out of the womb.
About four months later, my dad and I were planning on doing some tuckpointing on the house. We quickly understood that it was beyond our pay grade, so I had a bricklaying company come out. They contracted out the resealing of our flat roof. As many of you know, this led to our being out of the house for two full weeks. Now, what you may not know. After smelling what we thought was roofing asphalt for over 24 hours, we called the roofer to ask what was going on. He then called the fire department, and they went to the roof. After removing some of the roof, they found the place where the fire was. They said it wouldn’t have taken much to ignite, but that it smoldered out instead. The location of the fire: right above Edie’s room. She napped right under this smoldering while I was reassuring Chelsea that this smell was perfectly normal. We ended up staying with the Moodys because of the smell; our house could have gone up in flames while we were gone. Not one of my finest moments, but thanks be to God for keeping our four-month-old safe while there was a smolder in the attic right above her bed!
Now to one of my even less fine moments. I had a tough time this year at Cahokia. As you can imagine, it’s very hard to get 30 students to learn who are not interested in learning. During the fire incident, I even uttered the following words: “I wish this were the biggest thing going on in my life right now” referring to the hard time I was having at my job. Well, Chelsea quickly pointed out the sin in this attitude, and I repented. I was much more present in the situation after that. It really put my job struggles into perspective. So, I started looking for another job. I faithfully applied to a bunch of different jobs. I wanted nothing to do with teaching, but a new friend who has no idea what I can teach told me about an opening he was looking at at Westminster Christian Academy. After a daylong interview, and much prayer, that was the job the Lord blessed me with. We’re still excited about this! We’ve only heard really good things about this school.
If you’ve been listening carefully, you’ve heard me say that God provided in the midst of Edie’s birth, the fire incident, and my job search. As amazing as each of those things were, He has provided so much more through His Son Jesus Christ. Because of our sin, we’re only interested in living for ourselves. We want nothing to do with God or what He would have us do. Though we were made to be in relationship with Him, we rebel and go our own way. The Bible says that “No one is righteous, no not one. No one understands; no one seeks after God.” Because of this, we deserve punishment from God; since we are wicked, we must be treated as wicked. But God has provided a way. If we no longer trust in our own way and trust that Jesus has been punished on our behalf, He will forgive us. We can have relationship with God through Christ if we put our faith in Him. And we can trust God! He punished Christ for our sake and made Him alive again. This miracle actually happened and shows us that God wants us to believe and put our faith in Him. Though God has already provided so much for our baby girl, we’re praying that she will see that He has provided so much more through His Son. Please consider where you are placing your trust and join us in modeling trust in Christ for our daughter. We have an amazing heavenly Father Whom we can trust.
Again, thanks for coming; we’re excited to have everyone here. Please raise your glass; here’s to Edie, and to new beginnings!
Mr. Klunick Tutoring 