As small as a jalapeno seed...

Due to extremely poor scheduling on my part I volunteered to take dinner this week to two different couples in our ABF who recently had babies (our ABF is currently trying to re-populate the earth single-handedly...we have had someone give birth just about every month since we joined over a year ago and we have babies scheduled to arrive through January of 2009 as of now). ANYWAY...due to my poor planning I failed to buy the required amount of chicken at the grocery store this week and found myself chicken-less when starting my own family's dinner this evening. So we did what we always do when a crisis occurs -- we went to Omar's, our family's favorite little Mexican food restaurant. The place is great...good food, nice folks (they taught Jack to say Hola), close to home with good prices. I digress -- Omar's is not the point of this post.

While bathroom-inspector Jack was gone with Luke I lazily stared out the window at I-10. That's when I bit into a jalapeno seed. Anyone who has eaten a jalapeno knows that the seeds are where the real heat is found. That's when I started thinking -- dangerous I know and not something I seem to be doing much of lately outside the realm of menu planning and laundry methodology. Who first decided to pick a jalapeno and eat it? Who, after the initial consumption, decided it was something worth repeating? I am a HUGE fan of jalapenos -- one the few lasting pregnancy side effects that I actually appreciate -- but I don't know that if I had been the first to encounter the pepper it would have it's current renown. Then I began to think how amazing my God is. In his infinite wisdom he not only thought to give my life a plan and a purpose but he cared enough to make the jalapeno. And folks say the devil is in the details -- HA to that one. My God is in the details. He worked hard to make sure there would be a way to make me pure enough to spend time in his presence. Then he worked some more to make sure that every hair on my head was counted and numbered. Then he repeated all of this for all of the people that would ever walk this planet. And sometime in there he had the forethought to create the jalapeno. Are you kidding me??? How awesome is that!! I know this seems silly but it is just one more way God has revealed his eternal nature to me while also gently reminding that through all of my days (be they good or bad) He is forever there -- watching, guiding, teaching, molding, shaping and loving. It is a rather humbling experience; all brought on by a small jalapeno seed.