The Four Nguyens: Sweet, Sweet Faith

To my husband -- thank you for always making my birthday so sweet. I love you!

Birthday cake # 39: German chocolate with Pecan-Coconut Frosting
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Birthday cakes are very important. Whether they are made from scratch or by Betty Crocker, it doesn't matter. What does matter is who they are made by. Except for the Barbie doll cake someone made for me on my sixth birthday, and with the exception of my Sweet 16 cake with pretty pink roses, I think my mom always made a chocolate one for me. They were always special because they were made with love.

When I moved to North Carolina, it was a bittersweet beginning for me. Although I looked forward to all of the things this new journey would bring for me, and knowing how much I needed to change, it was so very difficult to leave behind 25 years of my life and all of those memories. All of those birthdays, all of those birthday cakes. I remember leaving Omaha that summer day, wondering if I was making a horrible mistake. I looked across the parking lot at my oldest sister waving goodbye after she had come to help me pack my life into the back of a box truck. And I took one look across the front seat of that U-Haul at my other sister, her brave smile so reassuring, wondering if she knew what she had done in offering to help me move to Raleigh. My head was spinning and the tears rolled quickly. She asked me why I was crying. I don't think I could speak, but I know it was not with my own strength that I put my foot on that gas pedal. I kept praying, "Please, give me strength....show me what to do....", words I kept repeating over and over. In that struggle, in all of that struggle, there was a lesson I was supposed to learn. Leaving was a leap of faith, one I am so thankful now that I took. It didn't change who I was, just where I was headed. In the right direction.

Some prayers were answered quickly. It was a feeling of sheer panic that I had, resigning from my job in Omaha without an offer on the table in Raleigh. Literally while I was on the road, a principal was calling about my resume, and a day after arriving I had an interview. Prayer answered. I found an apartment, found my way around the city, and made some friends. My parents came out to visit that first Christmas, and I know they were h-o-r-r-i-f-i-e-d to learn that I spent their Christmas money on a puppy to assuage my loneliness! Little Ellie was so sweet (still is) and provided some much needed companionship. I will never forget that day when Jennifer and I went to the animal shelter, how Ellie played a kind of doggie "hide and seek" with me, how I knew she was the one. Merry Christmas, Sarah! The best Christmas present ever....a furry, black snuggle puppy with milky white paws.

The answering of other prayers took a bit longer. I felt like God was taking his own sweet time with the answering to "Please give me someone to love..." and "Please give another chance." In reality, I wasn't listening to the answer God was giving me. I was listening for the answer I wanted to hear. But God knew. He was patient in waiting for me to figure myself out. He always is.

A year after moving to Raleigh, my sister and my niece helped me pack up a U-Haul again. Ellie and I had made friends with Catherine, a fellow teacher and dog-lover who had a BIG backyard. Catherine and her roommate, Colleen, were looking for a third person to help them pay the rent on a big duplex on St. Mary's Street. Ellie and I thought it was perfect, so we moved in July of that year. Jewel, Catherine's dog, and Ellie became fast friends, spending their days together in the big, lush backyard. Colleen...sweet Colleen...she was not a dog-lover, but she tolerated our two furry beasts. Colleen was the director of youth group activities at church. She had an uncanny ability for bringing out the best in people, making the quietest speak and the shyest comfortable. She and I spent lots of evenings talking about life and love. I kept saying my "love prayer", as she called it, and I continued to be discouraged by the fact that God was apparently taking a vacation from listening to my prayers! Colleen had the most positive outlook, and she refused to let me give up.

The night before my 27th birthday, Colleen convinced me to go with her to a housewarming party that one of her youth group sponsors was having. She raved about this guy, how cool he was, how great he was with the youth. I remember telling her, "I'll go, but I'm only staying for an hour. Then, I'm going to a movie!" I wasn't dragged kicking and screaming, but pretty close. I drove my own car so I could make a quick getaway, if necessary. I sat around for 55 of 60 minutes in that hour, making conversation with a bunch of single computer geeks with too many degrees. I was watching the clock closely. It was agony, I tell you. When I made my move to leave, I thanked the host, a barefoot guy named Chi. He was dressed in khakis and a starched, collarless white shirt. His eyes were happy, and his smile was charming and genuine. But what turned me upside down was the pretend pout he gave me when he said, "You're leaving? But you didn't have any of my apple pie!" I stayed for pie, which was delish, and then drove off to see Bruce Willis in Armageddon. Yes. I ditched Chi for a movie. And he still called to ask for a date.

Our first date was at Cafe Luna. The second was an awful movie. The third was dinner at his house: Hot and Sour Soup with Shrimp and Pineapple, Chicken with Ginger Sauce, and an Almond Gateau (French for "cake") birthday cake with buttercream icing and sliced almonds. Chi had taken the day off to make me dinner and a beautiful cake...three weeks after my birthday. It was a heartfelt sentiment on Chi's part. Such a "sweet beginning". After the apple pie, I was charmed; after the gateau, I knew. The rest, they say, is history.

My wonderful husband acknowledges my sweet tooth each year, reprising his role as pastry chef each September 27th. I guess it has become somewhat of a tradition since that first night I met him, on the eve of my birthday, 13 years ago. He wooed me with a homemade apple pie at his own housewarming. Can you imagine? I actually wanted to leave to go to a movie by myself instead of eat homemade apple pie with a cute guy! It was Chi's pie that made me stay, and his gateau that sealed the deal.

Simply put, I married my husband because he made me a birthday cake. I am reminded of his sweetness time and time again throughout the year, and when September 27th rolls around, he never fails to charm me all over again. I often wonder what I could ever have done to deserve him? Life is much clearer to me now, 13 years after moving here. And I have learned that prayers are answered at His perfect time, not ours, and not always how we think they will be. It's kind of like waiting for a cake to finish baking: watching it and wishing for it to be done won't make it bake faster, but trusting that it will turn out just right makes the end result sweeter.