biblical worldviewing

Say hello to Luke Thomas Law–born last night at 11:47 pm. We had no idea it would come so fast, we were expecting it to take a lot longer and not take place till very late at night, but Sarah did so amazing and after only 45 minutes of pushing, I watched as a new life slid out into the doctor’s hands and my beautiful wife laying there sweating and prettier than ever! I was tired, over stimulated, and so happy but I did not feel squeamish or like I was going to pass out. I cut the cord with precision and wonder. I tried my best to talk to Sarah and help her but I always felt like the words that came out of my mouth were kind of lame as soon as I said them! I didn’t know what to say a lot of the time so I just kept on saying “great job! good girl! I love you Sarah you are doing so great!”

The baby is perfect. 7 pounds, 8 ounces and 21.5 inches long, and the cutest baby boy in the world! He actually didn’t come out looking like an alien to me–he wasn’t all white or purple, he wasn’t red like a lobster, he seemed pretty close to normal as soon as he came out. There wasn’t a lot of goop or blood all over him, and he didn’t look like a tiny little fetus, but a real baby! Bigger than I thought! I got to spend the first 20 minutes of his life holding him while they were stitching up Sarah, then Sarah got to hold him and everyone left the room and gave us some time for just us.

We were taken to a different room and we settled in for the night before they brought Luke to us. We were thinking we would just let him stay in the nursery and be brought to Sarah just for feeding, but the nurse just told us that it’s standard for the baby to stay in the room if the mother is going to breastfeed. So even though we were terribly exhausted (Sarah especially!) we pretty much looked after the baby all night long. I got no sleep at all because Sarah couldn’t get the baby out of the bassinet so every time he cried or needed something I had to get up just to pick him up and give him to his mommy Sarah. That’s ok though! Even during the middle of the night, as we were so exhausted we were delirious and the baby crying and soiling himself–we just kept saying over and over “wow, I am so very happy.”

We have a new member of our family and the Church of God, the Father of Christ has a new covenant member. Our baby is part of the covenant community by grace and through the faith of his believing parents. Praise the Lord!

I am at this moment by my dear wife’s hospital bed at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh as she is resting before what is sure to be a long night of delivering our baby!

Sarah was not due until October 30, but today at 9:30 am she noticed a leak in her umm… “radiator” and tried to call her mom. Her mom didn’t answer. She tried to call the place where she’s been going for prenatal care, but they did not answer either. She tried calling me 3 times, but I did not answer. I was at work at my school and was actually taking a run around the track and then showering in the locker room. I finally picked up the phone as I was dressing myself and lacing up my boots (I’ve been wearing my army boots around to break them in) and I had that thing going on where you work out then get out of the shower and try to get dressed but it’s all steamy and you’re still sweating and it’s really annoying so when Sarah called I was like “hold on a second! geez!” and kept on lacing my last boot! Then I felt stupid when she told me she thinks her water broke, and she might need to go to the hospital. Well there was nothing to do but leave work early, go on home and bring her over to the hospital! When your water breaks, it breaks and it’s kind of the “point of no return” for having your baby. If the baby doesn’t come soon, it has a great risk of infection.

So I came home and Sarah was coming out of the shower. We started packing what we needed and getting ready to go (the baby’s bag was already packed but mine and Sarah’s wasn’t). There was such a feeling of excitement and nervousness as we packed–it felt like we were packing for a great trip we just won and the plane was leaving in an hour or something. We arrived at the hospital at about 12:50 pm and they took Sarah right up to triage. They confirmed her water was broken and told us Sarah was going to be put on this medication that induces contractions and labor and that we would probably have the baby very late tonight or early next morning!

It is now 10:00 pm and we are patiently waiting. Sarah’s contractions were growing more and more painful throughout the day and so we decided to get her an epidural. We had planned for her to have it anyway and we are very glad so far we elected to have it. Sarah was such a brave girl to get it and we are proud of her! Our families have come and visited Sarah, 3 at a time, but now they have all left. We don’t need them to spend the long night in the hospital–we are fine with it being just the 2 of us when the baby possibly comes at 2 or 3 am and we can just call them and tell them the news.

Everything looks good. The baby has come down and they say the head is right up there and pushing up on the cervix. Sarah’s labor is progressing at a good rate and she is reasonably comfortable. There has been a great many phone calls buzzing out across the world and now it seems like everyone including people in Europe and in China are now praying and awaiting the news of the delivery. We are blessed with so many caring friends and family members! Sarah and I have prayed together as well as Sarah and her family. She looks so beautiful on that bed in that hospital gown, about to have my baby.

Praise the Lord for his blessings and pray that we make it through the night with no complications. Joy comes with the morning.

Right now it’s Friday and I’m in the classroom with the autistic students I work with for my day job. It’s been going pretty well except for the times when a certain student has a breakdown and we have to spend hours calming him down/getting kicked and hit by him/holding him down in an empty classroom. I’m learning more and more to become numb to his curses, taunts and blows, because it really isn’t his fault and it happens so much that if I let it really get to me each time I could not function in this job.

Tonight I’m off to my evening job at the restaurant. I have notified my manager at the restaurant that I will be resigning in two weeks. It’s not a bad job, but my wife and I hate the irregular scheduling and late hours. I really hate leaving my pregnant wife alone at night until 10 or 11 pm, and there are plenty of other annoyances with that job. Hopefully I can find another part time job with a more regular schedule, better pay, and something that’s a little closer. I have discovered a pretty remarkable beverage while playing around with combinations at the restaurant. It could be called a “Vanilla Cream Italian Soda” or possibly a “Smooth Vanilla Float”. It is comprised of:

- 10 oz. sprite
- 0.5 oz. vanilla flavor syrup
- 3-4 oz. half-n-half creamer
- shaken, with lots of cubed ice

I had been making “cream sodas” using sprite and vanilla syrup for quite some time when the creamer was brought to my attention. It really adds a smooth, creamy taste–much like the last few gulps of a vanilla float where most of the ice cream has melted, only I think this drink tastes better and more even.

Tomorrow morning I get up early (with some trepidation) to head to Sanford for my monthly drill with the US Army National Guard. In ways, I do not look forward to this, because it is very tiresome and I have not lived up to my plans for exercising this month. I had planned to do a lot more running and training, but other stuff got in the way and now I feel unprepared–like the same feeling I used to get right before a weekly piano lesson when I hadn’t really practiced at all in the past week. However, in several ways I am looking forward to the drill–to see what new, exciting thing I can learn and deepen my understanding of the military. Will we take apart and assemble M-16s? Learn to throw grenades? Jump out of helicopters? Or just sit in a classroom and learn the latest military policies on this or that?

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One of my students here at the middle school is a mummurer. He is constantly saying nonsense things, sometimes under his breath, sometimes out loud. A couple times, he just says something so funny I can barely keep from laughing. About 20 minutes ago, I told him to put away the blocks he was playing with and get to his desk. He had been building a thing with the blocks that looked a lot like the empire state building. As he toppled it over, he said “Was it really beauty that killed the beast?”

How the Lord got my attention and showed me biblical worldviewing in a waiting room full of pregnant women.

My pastor from my church in Greensboro greatly blessed me by giving me a stack of books along with the books he was lending me for my short stay at Reformed Theological Seminary. It is to my own detriment that I have not begun to go through these books until just recently when I started this one during a period when our internet went out (which tells me something about my priorities/bad habits):

Sinclair Ferguson’s exposition on the book of Ruth has been opening my eyes to some of the great dramatic and narrative aspects of God’s Word. Reading Ferguson’s comments on Ruth has allowed me to take Ruth slowly enough to really ruminate on what’s happening in the book–I mean, how hard is it to be an old widow with no one but a foreigner for a daughter-in-law with no job in today’s world? Imagine a few thousand years ago! These women had fallen upon desperate times during a famine–a time that was already desperate enough in the land. If it wasn’t for God’s wisdom in restoring these women according to his plan, they would surely perish.

I took Sarah in for her scheduled check-up at human services on Friday. It really breaks my heart that we can’t afford to go to a private doctor’s office and get good, personal care for our first baby, but the quality of medical care at the county human services is no less than any good doctor. Human services lacks that personal touch and comes with a lot of waiting–but it’s free. The other day, as I sat in that waiting room crowded with all these pregnant women, I was praying with my eyes open. About 70% of the women are Hispanic and don’t speak English; the rest are mainly African American with a couple Vietnamese and other Asians here and there. There are little children running around everywhere, presumably because they would have no one to look after them if the mother did not bring them in, and maybe because they too have appointments with human services. There was no way for me to know if those women were married or unmarried, or even if the fathers who were not present (there was probably 1 man for every 7 women) are even part of their lives at all, but I was centered on one verse from Ruth. It is a benediction that Naomi spoke over Ruth and Orpah when Naomi was telling the women to depart from her.

Ruth 1:8,9 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept.

Naomi’s prayer is answered later in the story of Ruth. We see how Ruth makes a decision that is much like a profession of faith (”your God will be my God”) and becomes included in the Covenant of God, and experiences the blessings of the Covenant. I found myself looking around the room at those women and praying for each one, saying “May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!” As we have seen from the story of Ruth, it is well within God’s power to see that every one of those women are brought into the Covenant and given the blessing of a worthy husband.