How does this happen?

These look delicious. I found them here, after clicking links from one blog to another. Have I mentioned how much I love the internet and especially with wireless connection?! I look forward to making and eating these cupcakes at somepoint in my life. What's not to love in these little beauties? =)
We had a relaxing, spring-like weekend at my house. Enjoyed the sunshine, eating out on our deck for the first time this year, in addition, Chip and I had been asked to speak in a local church, and it seemed to go really well. It was neat to talk to some of the congregation afterwards, and to hear how they were touched by different aspects of the way God has worked in our lives the past several years. It is amazing to me too, how Teagan's life still impacts people even though she's not physically here with us. And likely, her life is touching more people in her death, than she might have ever touched in her lifetime. I don't know for sure, but it does bring a bit more healing to our lives each time we share our story.
These cupcakes and our testimony of God in our life makes me pause and wonder, "How did this happen?" Not in the sense that I'm questioning how tragedy happened, but the thing that happens when you stare at yourself in the mirror for a minute too long and suddenly the reflection you see doesn't seem like you at all. Does that ever happen to you?! That's what I'm talking about- it's the feeling and thoughts that rush through you when you 'step back' on occasion and look at your life from a different perspective.
I've been doing that a bit...realizing how different my life is than the one I dreamed for myself when I was 5. And 12. And 17. And 22. Those dreams that I held and the way I though things were going to be are so far from the way things really are. Yet I love my life and am overwhelmed with the guilt that I am living a really great, a really undeserved life much of the time.
I never want to live such an 'easy life' that I don't need God in it every single day. And I never want to get to the point in my life where I forget to thank Him for all that I have. I am blessed, in spite of hardship, and sometimes I am realizing, that I am blessed because of hardship. It's a crazy concept...that I can be thankful for the trials that have come my way. Had I not lived it and experienced it, I wouldn't believe it. But it's a reality in my life, that I recognize as something that can only come from God.
So, today, I am thankful and grateful, that my life has twists and turns and sometimes goes absolutely contrary to the way I would choose for it to go. But, there are gifts and blessings each step of the way.
I never thought I'd be happy to bake chicken and make cupcakes for my family, and give baths and do laundry, and not go to work from 9 to 5 earning a nice salary and hang out in an office with educated, interesting coworkers. Seems my 'dreams' have changed. I can only imagine how the dreams I have at this time will look different in the next 5 years. I hope that they still include yummy cupcakes from time to time. =)