The Further Domestication of Cecilia-Irene

So back in October, our household purchased what we believed at the time to be a nice cut of steak. We were saving it for a nice/fancy dinner. But things never worked out and the "steak" sat in our freezer for months. Finally, about a week or so ago, Christina and I decided that the time to eat "steak" had come. We planned to cook it up on Friday before going out to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." It would be a nice dinner before seeing what turned out to be a fantastic movie.
Then, I took the "steak" out of the freezer and discovered it to be a pork shoulder. Unsure of how to cook this cut of meat, I turned to every cook's best friend. And before you could say BAM! we had a recipe for Roasted Pork Shoulder. It was pretty simple, just required some spices, red wine vinegar, and some time marinating in our fridge. We also added some potatoes to give us some vegetable and starch points. Before we put it in the fridge to marinate, it looked like this:














After marinating for three hours, we put it in the oven for three hours. (But we took the plastic wrap off first...not to worry...) The following picture was taken when the roast had been in the oven for about an hour and a half.


Isn't it pretty?


And I mean the roast, not our oven. Our oven is old but faithful.








The roast was finally done around 6pm, when Christina's fiance, Jake, arrived for dinner. He had grilled cheese and rice while we girls had pork and potatoes and rice. (He didn't want to eat meat on a Friday.) But before serving the meat and potatoes, I made it look all pretty because after all, presentation is key.
Now, this is pretty. The potatoes and the pork were very artistically arranged on the platter. (The rice was in another dish.)











I think I'm getting pretty good at this domestication thing. In the past month, I've made lemon-parsley chicken, east bistro chicken (this semi-spicy chicken and pasta dish), and now the pork.

And Prince Caspian was great. I loved it. It wasn't completely true to the book but whatever...

At long last...

For the past several weeks, I have been stressing out about one thing. I had yet to receive my formal acceptance into la Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. I'd been accepted into the program here at GVSU, but not in Spain. I had hit the point where my prayers went something like "Jesus, make me more like you. And could I please get my letter from Spain ASAP? Help me to become a strong holy woman of God and get into the University of Deusto..." I think you get the general idea.
I was so worried/stressed that this morning, I had my housemate Christina check my email for me. I knew the acceptance letter would be coming soon and I knew it would be coming to my email. But I couldn't handle one more day that dejected, rejected feeling of checking my email in the morning and seeing nothing from Spain. And then Christina opened my email account and said, "So, do you want me to read the email to you?" She started reading it to me and then she let me look at it. It was an amazingly peaceful moment.
So now I'm filling out the questionnaire for family housing. I'm hoping to live with a family; maybe even a Catholic family but that's probably too much to ask. But I'll keep praying. It probably won't be prayers along the lines of "Father, make me a strong, holy woman of God and please let me live with a Catholic family."
Pero, ahora, estoy feliz con el hecho que puedo asistir la Universidad de Deusto.

My left foot-paw!

This past summer I attended Campus Outreach Academy (COA), a program run by University Christian Outreach (UCO) to train and form good Christian leaders to evangelize on today's college campuses. This was a wonderful experience and I'm so grateful that I went. During numerous prayer times those two weeks, we heard many prophetic words and scripture passages telling us to prepare for times of sorrow, struggle, trial, and suffering. Sitting here on my couch in Grand Rapids and looking back over the past year, I've really started to realize that my many struggles these past nine months have been spiritual warfare more than anything else.
First, in September, there was my bout with walking pneumonia. This was a stressful time and in some ways changed the way I prayed and the things I requested of God.
This was followed by several months of simple, occasional health issues related to anemia, a migraine here or there, and stress/winter related fun.
Then, in January, I went to the UCO Winter Conference. And, as I realized the other day, I haven't been completely physically healthy since then. My migraines got to the point where I had a few that I thought were going to kill me. Then, my breathing problems, which turned out to be allergy-induced asthma rather than bronchitis, came along. And then, there was the long and painful saga of my left leg. (Side note: For some reason, I was just reminded of a comment a friend of mine once made that went something along the lines of "Identity crisis, my left foot-paw!" She was referencing this excellent series of children's books.)
My leg crisis began when I fell on the ice on my way to the bus-stop after work one jolly, cold night in February. I heard a distinct pop coming from my left knee but being in a hurry and rather tired, I thought nothing of it and headed home for the evening. My knee continued to hurt for a few days but I chalked that up to the fact that I was working six to eight hours a day most days that week. And I had spring break a few weeks later, so my leg seemed to heal and I went back to my normal life.
Unfortunately, my leg did not heal. Instead, I frequently found myself in pain after walking or running for a long time. This situation worsened as time went by and I started finding myself frequently packing my knee in ice. And Greg and Kyle frequently began pressing me to go see a doctor. So finally, right before finals week, I consented and made a doctor's appointment. The day after I finished my last final, Kyle's twin brother, Alex, drove me to Ann Arbor, and then Jenny Pink drove me to the doctor's office. The doc ordered an MRI and said I was looking at one of two situations. Either I had a torn meniscus (which would mean surgery and weeks in bed) or a sprained LCL. So, I made an appointment for and MRI the following Wednesday. And then I began wearing a knee brace and starting using crutches to hobble around the world. Then, I had my MRI and the following day found out these shocking results: sprained ACL (not too bad, just means I need physical therapy when I move back to Ann Arbor in late June) and arthritis.
Yep, I have arthritis. So I'm going to spend the rest of my life struggling with arthritis.

And yet, I know that in all of this, God will be with me and love me and support me.
More on this story later...I'm tired but I'd love to tell you about the ways that God has used this situation to bless me in the past few days.