Why Not!

August looked at his young wife Matilda as he eyed the notice in the paper and said, “Meine Liebste, warum nicht.” (My Dear, why not!) The ad spoke of an opportunity to go to America. It would mean traveling to Hamburg, the port city of Germany. In the late 1800’s, travel to America by boat was still dangerous but looking into her husband’s eyes, the dreamer, she believed.

“Ja, warum nicht!” (Yes, Why Not!) she said hugging him. After sailing to America they would later settle in Faulk, Wisconsin. Where August later purchased farm land and started a Blacksmith business. Atop a grassy hill, they would spend their years on the front porch overlooking their cattle and crops watching their seven children grow. Their daughter Amanda would later have a child named Patricia. She would later become my grandmother.

On a Sunday night in early January 1997, on a small bible college campus, a nineteen-year-old girl was walking back to her dorm after a Sunday night church service when she spotted a handsome young man also returning from church.

As he headed to his dorm she called out, “Hey would you like a rice cake?”

Stunned he said in the blue light of the moon as it reflected off the freshly fallen snow, “No thank you.”

Because he didn’t know the girl that asked or her persistence to meet him, he again started to make his way to the dorm. “Come on, you must be hungry,” she called after him.

Though the light was poor he stopped to get a better look at this girl, “Ok, why not.”

She smiled so big he could see her little white teeth in the glittering January night. She laughed as she realized she only had a half-eaten piece of rice cake in her hand as she quickened her pace to meet him, “Great, but there’s only half a piece left.”

Bravely the leather-jacketed cool guy with spikey hair took the rice cake remainder and met the girl he would later marry…me.

On a Sunday afternoon in mid-July 2007, the phone rang. All three children were sleeping soundly down for their afternoon nap. Brad picked up the phone and stood listening intently. He started to pace the floor ah-huhing while I tried to figure out who he could be talking to. Finally, he said, “Thank you Luke, I will talk it over with my wife.”

Hanging up the cordless phone on the receiver he turned to look at me, “Dianne what do you think about taking a leap of faith? I just got off the phone with the Youth Pastor from First Assembly in Cedar Rapids, and he wants me to come and work with middle school students. He can’t guarantee a job, but I can start as an intern and see where it leads us? It would mean that we would resign our position immediately and you would have to get a job.  What do you think?”

(Pause) My children were 5, 3, and 1. I had been a stay at home mom for five years. The gut reaction should have been, No. But instead like my great- great grandma Matilda I called out, “Why Not?”

Brad went to audition for the junior high position on a Wednesday night. He had practiced his “best sermon ever” for two weeks straight. Five minutes into his message the Tornado sirens went off so the youth group evacuated to the coffee shop and Brad never was able to deliver his well-rehearsed message, but he got the job.

Seven months later we moved to Cedar Rapids and I was able to quit the job I had as a pre-school teacher’s assistant. Brad was hired on full time and I returned to being a stay home mom. But we felt the surge of excitement as God was opening a new door of ministry to us. For the past nine years, we have both grown in our ministries as our children have outgrown their little tike toys and entered into their double digits. Could it possibly be time for another “Why Not?”

On Monday, September 26th after a brief trip to Walmart, Brad and I discovered we would soon be parents again! At the realization that Lydia our youngest would soon be turning 11, we both burst out laughing as we stared at the solid double blue lines of the pregnancy test. “Why not?” we said to each other. 

I had secretly wanted just one more cute little one for a long time. Just one more toddling Singleton. Feeling overwhelmed with awe that we were able to have just one more opportunity, we vowed not to tell anyone. But we are not good with secrets and soon the news began to spill…a little here and a little there.

Yes, we have concluded that in life all good things take a little risk, whether that means a voyage from the old world to the new. Accepting a rice cake from a complete stranger, to saying “I do.” In my life, I am thankful that when everything seems settled and as normal as can be, a little opportunity may spring up to throw caution to the wind and just sing out a hearty, “Why Not!”