On Anxiety

I went to the doctor yesterday for my regular check-up and everything looked good (he IS head-down, which was a concern for a few weeks there), except that the baby's heartbeat was a little lower than it has previously been, and on the low end of average, so the doctor ordered a nonstress test (NST), where they monitor the baby's heartrate and movement for 20 minutes to make sure that the heartra
te goes up when he moves and stays steady when he's not moving. Anyway, I had to sit there for 20 minutes listening to his little heart beat away and click on this button everytime he moved. He passed the test just fine, so the doctor said everything should be okay, but I have to keep a regular check on his kick count (how much he moves in an hour) and go straight to the hospital if it seems irregularly low to me... Of course, the odds are, given his good reaction to the NST, and the fact that he is generally very active, that all is just fine and he just happens to have a slightly lower-than-average heartrate (but still in a normal range), which could indicate that he's on the larger side. But my immediate reaction is to start thinking of all the worst possible scenarios and fear for his life and health and generally become paranoid... Which got me to thinking about a sermon I listened to Monday night that C.J. Mahaney preached during that Washington D.C. sniper stuff a couple years ago... the topic was fear (his church is in the D.C. area) and he was preaching from Psalm 27: "The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?...", as well as Matthew 10:26-33 where Jesus says we are not to fear those who kill the body, but rather the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell, and then goes on to talk about the Father caring for the sparrows and knowing the number of hairs on our head. His point about fearing because of not trusting God's complete sovereignty and providence in our lives was convicting enough before the doctor's appointment! I don't have time to outline all the really good and helpful points he makes in this sermon, but it's a good one, so if you have time, it's well worth a listen...

Also well worth a read on the subject of anxiety, this time specifically in relation to motherhood is this little article by Kristin Chesemore, which I first read sometime last week... Seems to me that God had my reading and listening to these resources well-timed with this last doctor's appointment!:-) So today I've been praying that I would not be finding my comfort in the fact that the medical tests seem to show that all is well, or that the last 24 hours of kick counts have shown him to be as active as ever, but rather in the fact that through Christ, I need no longer live in terror of him who can destroy not only the body but also the soul, and that God is completely sovereign over the life and health of this little boy in my womb, and is working all things for His glory and our good! "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD GOD is an everlasting rock." (Isaiah 26: 3,4)

By the way, the pumpkin on the previous post was masterfully carved by my husband last Reformation Day.

Interesting discussion on Christians' involvement in Halloween going on here. Of course, if you want to add a comment, you'll have to have a Xanga account, but even if you don't, it's interesting reading (and you could always add a comment here).

Raisins, Crazy Kids and Puddle Pictures

Well, the raisin bread, delicious as it was and as much of it as I ate, seems to have done nothing for my weight gain, seeing as I actually lost a bit this week, so now we are trying oatmeal raisin cookies (can you tell I'm on a bit of a raisin kick lately?). Of course, it's possible that I don't even have a week left to gain anymore... not that I'm getting my hopes up. If the last two doctor's appointments are any indication, I'll probably end up going past my due date. Oh well... I'm not quite so anxious to have an early delivery this time around... I've got a crazy 19 month old to keep me plenty occupied. And she really has been crazy lately... She's really starting to babble (the kind where they string a whole bunch of sounds together with an intonation that suggests that you really should be able to understand them, but really you only catch one recognizable word, if that!) and now she wanders (or runs, depending on her energy level) around the house saying things only she can understand and then stopping to do a little dance... or shutting her eyes really tight, stretching out her arms and making odd little movements with her fingers with a weird grin on her face... or running into walls... or carting full Juicy Juice containers around the house and leaving them in the middle of the living room (while saying apuldidi "apple juice", which, if she's excited, comes out apuldididididididi). Yeah, she's a little bundle of energy... I'm starting to wonder if she hasn't stolen all of ours, seeing as Nathan's been sick this week and slept most of today, and I'm pretty tired myself...

On another note, I took my daily walk this morning in the park behind our house, which has been a construction zone the past few months, and for the first time in a long while, was able to do so without having to circumvent at least one truck or large hole in the ground... they just poured the final layer of asphalt on Wednesday, so it's still jet-black and smooth and last night's rain was sitting in shallow little puddles all over it... the sun was coming out just as I starting walking and reflecting off all those little pools of water... It's been quite sometime (maybe even since we lived in Toronto) since I've been walking on a surface smooth enough to give a decent reflection (if you ever saw the old path around Shelby Park, "smooth" was about the last word you'd use to describe it). I was remembering how I used to love to watch the ground when walking after a rain shower because I loved seeing all the "puddle pictures". And at this time of year, when the leaves are starting to change, I particularly enjoy looking at all the reds and oranges and yellows reflecting off the pavement. Today's puddle pictures were particularly beautiful because the colours of the leaves against a bright blue sky contrasted starkly with the black of the newly poured asphalt, and they brought Psalm 19 to mind: "The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above (as well as the one in the puddles) proclaims his handiwork..." May we be reminded of our great Creator when we observe His incredible handiwork in all the minute details of the world we live in...

Unfortunately, after a few laps of enjoying the puddles, the guys who had previously been spreading grass seed decided it was time to spread straw over the seeds, and the park rapidly began to smell like a barnyard... At which point, after a few minutes of griping to myself, it occurred to me that such a smell was the same which adorned our Saviour's first bed... "though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men..." (Philippians 2:5-10). May we be reminded of the depth to which our great Creator stooped to save us when we experience the filth and stench of the world we live in... And in both cases, be it beauty or ugliness that points us to Him, let us lift our hearts to praise our Creator, Sustainer and Deliverer...

Legal Inconsistencies

Yes, I know it's Saturday, but I thought I'd be a little unpredictable and post something today. I was doing a little research yesterday as I'm working on getting our wills together, and came across this little part of Kentucky's Intestate Succession Law (the rules on who gets your stuff in what order if you don't leave a will or all your named beneficiaries are dead) that caught my attention:

"A child of a decedent, born within 10 months after the decedent's death, is still eligible to inherit from the decedent. For intestate succession purposes, the child is considered to have been alive at the time of the decedent's death."

Did you catch that? If a guy gets his wife pregnant and is killed in a car crash that very night (the child then being born 9 months after his death, within the 10 month limitation), estate law says the child was alive and his heir at the time of his death (read: at the time of the child's conception). Hmmm... sounds like that newly conceived embryo is human afterall. How then do we go about making a law that it's fine to murder said human? Do I sense a little inconsistency here? (And who wants to bet that any pro-abortion person who found out they had been the child in such circumstances wouldn't want to collect that inheritance?)

Disconnected Thoughts

Mmmmm... the smell of homemade raisin bread almost finished baking is wafting in from the kitchen. I've crossed all but one thing off my to-do list for this week. Except for bringing the porta-crib up from the basement into our bedroom (and the normal weekly cleaning and shopping), everything is about ready for baby. So I'm feeling relaxed and ready to do a little xanga-ing this evening... just a sec, gotta go check on the bread... okay, I'm back... good thing I went to check on it - the top was starting to get just a wee bit on the dark side... now I just have to let it cool for a couple minutes before I take another break to go get a piece :)

This has been quite the busy week, so it's nice to have a little break tonight. Some friends of ours had her baby last weekend and we watched their toddler for them while they were at the hospital... Fortunately, Susanna and their little girl get along really well (all things considered), but I just have to say: kudos to anyone with twins! We had to make a Walmart trip with the two of them, and, well, I have to admit that it went better than I had expected, but it was still an "adventure". We had one of those carts with the extra plastic kiddy-seat attached to the back, so not only were we toting around two kids who kept trying to steal each other's sippy cups and poke each other's eyes out, but we had a double-long cart to maneuver around Walmart on a Saturday afternoon (read: busy place!)... I've got to say, Sam's has a much better idea with those carts that have two seats up top instead of the traditional one. Maybe next time, I could borrow one of theirs and wheel it over to Walmart ;) Anyway, I suppose in a couple weeks (or possibly days, although I'm not getting my hopes up), this will be my Walmart experience on a weekly basis... note to self: block out an extra hour of time for shopping and enough money for a chocolate pick-me-up at the end! :) Okay, break for slice of bread...

Mmmm... yummy... I think this might be a good way for me to gain those extra pounds the nurse keeps looking for at my appointments, 'cause I'm probably going to have to go back for a second helping... ;)

Question (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with any of the previous remarks or trains of thoughts): In Acts 10, which is the story of Peter being sent to take the gospel to (the gentile) Cornelius, verse 4 says that an angel appeared to Cornelius with the words, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God," and therefore (taking the "therefore" from verse 32 where this is repeated), he should send for Peter so that the Gospel can be proclaimed to him. And then Peter, when he arrives, states in verses 34-5, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him." Now I know that we are to understand Scripture in light of Scripture, and we know from the rest of Scripture that salvation is through faith alone, by grace alone, and not by works. So how do we explain this passage in light of that truth, because the statements here seem to indicate that Cornelius gets to hear the Gospel because he is righteous and devout (i.e., because he has lived a life of good works). Has anyone heard a good explanation of this?

False Pretenses

Yeah, well, it's a good thing I didn't promise to post again before the week was up, seeing as we're around to Friday again with no extra entries in between. I've been busy cleaning every spare corner of our house (honestly, what madness is this that gets into a woman in the last month of pregnancy when she's supposed to be resting from hard physical labour??!) Okay, so I haven't cleaned EVERY spare corner... yet... but unless Tookie is earlier than I expect, I've still got at least 2 weeks to get the rest of them done... Among my various accomplishments this week: we finally have some pictures up on the walls (something it's taken me 5 months to do)... well, at least we have pictures up on one wall. But hey, that's not bad considering the previous rate of picture-hanging! :) You can also see the surface of our dresser... as in the whole surface! Nevermind that the floor looks like a tornado has been through it... I'm cleaning from the top down, and down is for next week.

I've started reading through Acts this week, too, partially because Nathan and I have been trying to better understand the Holy Spirit's work in the Church (so I figured the history of the early church would be a good place to start), and also because for some reason unknown to me, it's the book in the New Testament that I'm least familiar with (except maybe Jude). I've also been listening to a sermon series on Acts as I read through it... I read the story of Ananaias and Sapphira in Acts 5 the other day, and this afternoon, got around to listening to the sermon relating to said passage... I've only ever really thought of the application of that passage, as it follows from the context at the end of chapter 4, as being that we ought not to claim anything as our own possession but rather to view all that we've been given as a gift from God to be used in the service of His Church, and that we dare not make false pretenses of being more generous than we actually are. Which is all true, and convicting in its own right, but C.J. Mahaney extends that false pretense application to all areas of our lives... the sin committed by Ananaias and his wife was one of making themselves out to be more spiritual than they actually were, in order, perhaps, to look as good as Barnabas (Acts 4: 36,37), which is something that is an almost daily temptation, probably for most of us. I know I struggle with it in the area of "being involved"... I look at people (often singles, but not necessarily so) who seem to be involved in every ministry the church carries out, as well as a stack of other personal ministries, and suddenly I feel like I need to make a detailed list, for myself and anyone who wants to listen, of all the little things I do that make me look "busy for God"... I'm not content to be seen for what I am - a mother of a small child with another strapped around her waist 24/7 who does what she can to take care of her home and family and with the remaining time is involved regularly in a very few and not very visible other ministries. I want to look like Superwoman, and if I think anyone might question my "lack" of involvement, I feel this tremendous need to defend my reputation and show off any accomplishment I can think of, even if it means exaggerating. And yet for such a lie, Ananaias and Sapphira were executed on the spot (and not under the covenant of law either!).

God, be merciful to me,
On Thy grace I rest my plea;
Plenteous in compassion Thou,
Blot out my transgressions now;
Wash me, make me pure within,
Cleanse, O cleanse me from my sin.

My transgressions I confess,
Grief and guilt my soul oppress;
I have sinned against Thy grace
And provoked Thee to Thy face;
I confess Thy judgment just,
Speechless, I Thy mercy trust.

I am evil, born in sin;
Thou desirest truth within.
Thou alone my Savior art,
Teach Thy wisdom to my heart;
Make me pure, Thy grace bestow,
Wash me whiter than the snow.

Broken, humbled to the dust
By Thy wrath and judgment just,
Let my contrite heart rejoice
And in gladness hear Thy voice;
From my sins O hide Thy face,
Blot them out in boundless grace.

Gracious God, my heart renew,
Make my spirit right and true;
Cast me not away from Thee,
Let Thy Spirit dwell in me;
Thy salvation’s joy impart,
Steadfast make my willing heart.

Sinners then shall learn from me
And return, O God, to Thee;
Savior, all my guilt remove,
And my tongue shall sing Thy love;
Touch my silent lips, O Lord,
And my mouth shall praise accord.

- The Psalter (1912)

[more recently recorded by Jars of Clay, which, as Nathan can attest, is a CD I am in the process of quickly wearing out]