Thoughts on Birth Class

Last week was rather nutty so I never wrote down my thoughts on the birth class.  Now another week has gone by with yet another class.  Time to jot down some things:

1. It was definitely not as awkward and embarrassing as I was anticipating.  There were seven other couples besides us, most of which seemed just as newbie as we are.  I felt silly for being the smallest person there with the most distant due date, but who knows if the hospital is going to have another class before July?  This is Broken Bow, after all.
2. It's exciting to see and have someone else reiterate all of the material that we have already been reading.  No, it's not a Bradley class, but I was surprised by the similarity of many of the exercises, breathing techniques, and labor positions.  
3. For being hyper-sensitive to gross things, I'm finding the animated clips of physical changes, and the live videos of labor and birth to be fascinating and exciting.  God designed our bodies to do incredible things.  (Yes, we watched the dreaded "live birth" video last night.  It was so fun.)
4. All of that said, it is somewhat discouraging to notice how terrible everyone looks while they are in labor.  Seriously?  We all have to look that bad?  Even the husbands look terrible.
5. I have a really fabulous husband, you know.  Even though he was super hungry and super tired last night, he participated fully in every practice scenario and every exercise and really aimed to do things just right (while still maintaining a sense of humor).  I am so grateful to have someone who cares so much about this whole process and throws himself wholeheartedly into learning about it with me.
6. I have discovered the latest greatest distraction for labor: a wounded fly.  I was sitting there, practicing breathing while Steve was squeezing the stink out of my shoulders (a pretend contraction?), and as I was attempting to think wondrously relaxing thoughts about Monterey, a wounded fly began to gimp across the floor in front of me.  Where was he going?  What was he doing?  Why was he wounded?  It was great.
7. Probably my biggest concern about everything (even though I am well aware of the fact that I have months to get used to the idea) is being in pain and having people bumbling around looking at me and trying to do things and talking to me.  When I'm sick, I pretty much want to be left alone.  If there is a problem, then I'll talk.  Being talked to by nurses and doctors is the worst.  I guess it's just going to be part of the growing experience, right?

In conclusion, it's all going well.  Part of me wants July to hurry up, while another part is desperately glad that we don't have to put all of this into action for a few months.

Okay, time to clean the house.

Piper on C.S. Lewis

If you haven't listened to Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul yet, you should carve out about an hour from your day and do it.  As a die-hard C.S. Lewis fan, I was amazed and encouraged by Piper's masterful treatment of the life and spiritual experience of Lewis. 

One part of the message particularly struck me and that was "the perils of introspection."  It's a long quote, but I think it's worth reading.

"Lewis’s experience in the pursuit of Joy and the mistakes hemade has had a huge effect on the way I think about the assurance of salvation in relationship to introspection and self-examination. What he discovered is that the effort to know the experience of Joy by looking at Joy is self-defeating. He wrote, “I saw that all my waitings and watchings for Joy, all my vain hopes to find some mental content on which I could, so to speak, lay my finger and say, ‘This is it,’ had been a futile attempt contemplate the enjoyed.” ⁴¹ It can’t be done, for the moment we step outside ourselves to contemplate our enjoying, we are no longer enjoying, but contemplating. The implication of this for knowing that we are believing God by trying to look at our believing is enormous.

This is our dilemma . . . as thinkers we are cut off from what we think about; as tasting, touching, willing, loving, hating, we do not clearly understand. The more lucidly we think, the more we are cut off: the more deeply we enter into reality, the less we can think. You cannot study Pleasure in the moment of the nuptial embrace, nor repentance while repenting, nor analyze the nature of humor while roaring with laughter. But when else can you really know these things? ⁴²

You cannot hope and also think about hoping at the same moment; for in hope we look to hope’s object and we interrupt this by (so to speak) turning around to look at the hope itself. . . . Introspection is in one respect misleading. In introspection we try to look inside ourselves and see what is going on. But nearly everything that was going on a moment before is stopped by the very act of our turning to look at it. Unfortunately this does not mean that introspection finds nothing. On the contrary, it finds precisely what is left behind by the suspension of all our normal activities; and what is left behind is mainly mental images and physical sensations. The great error is to mistake this mere sediment or track or by product for the activities themselves. ⁴³

What this has meant for me is, first, that I see now that the pursuit of Joy must always be indirect—focusing not on the experience but the object to be enjoyed. And, second, I see that faith in Jesus, in its most authentic experience is suspended when it is being analyzed to see if its real. Which means this analysis always ends in discouragement. When we are trusting Christ most authentically, we are not thinking about trusting, but about Christ. When we step out of the moment to examine it, we cease what we were doing, and therefore cannot see it. My counsel for strugglers therefore is relentlessly: Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus in his word. And pray for eyes to see."

 Bam.  Here was something that applied so thoroughly to me, especially lately.  How often do I spend more time thinking about if I'm loving Steve enough and in the right way and if I'm being a good wife and what makes a good wife than focusing on Steve or just on living my life?  How often do I evaluate how I feel about doing the dishes and the laundry and convincing myself not to feel bad about it instead of just doing the chores?  And even more importantly, how many times do I declare my spiritual life a failure because I insist on focusing on how I'm doing spiritually instead of looking to Jesus?

Convicting?  Yes.  Encouraging?  Definitely.

Amused

I found this grape:

What a disgusting little puppet.

Endings

We finished reading The House at Pooh Corner last night. We are suckers for sentimentality, so we have been putting off the inevitable. I knew it was going to be sad and sad things plus Amelia just aren't a good thing these days. Steve was brave and started reading, "Christopher Robin was going away...." I braced myself and forced myself not to cry through the whole chapter. Then I ran out to the kitchen and got a granola bar to distract myself. Okay, I know that pregnancy hormones probably contribute to the chaos, but why this hyper-melancholy reaction to endings?

Endings of Good Things are getting to me these days because I apply the scenario to my own life. Everything is so jolly right now: I love being married, I love our little house, I love looking forward to having a baby, I love our funny little adventures and the random jokes and stupid misunderstandings and tickling matches and everything that makes life with Steve so splendid. When we read Winnie-the-Pooh, or watch Up! or anything that depicts a simple, happy time between people (or stuffed animals who are like people), I think about us. And when it ends, I think about us ending someday. Hopefully, that someday will be 80 years from now. But life as we know it will still end. That is unbearably sad to think about.

But is it? Does our enjoyment of each other really end? As believers in Jesus Christ, we have the hope of a glorious eternity with Him. That is something in which we should rejoice daily. Still, we have only glimmers (wonderful as they are) of what our eternal life will be like. We don't know if our earthly relationships, even the closest relationships of marriage and/or parenting will have the same bearing on ourselves. Maybe it won't even matter.

Maybe it will matter. C.S. Lewis wrote in "The Weight of Glory" that "if a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desires fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy." The relationship of God the Father with His Son will continue in eternity. The Church will be as a purified bride to her Bridegroom. Maybe the glory of these truths that are shown to us in human relationships will be all the more glorious and deserving of worship because we have experienced them on earth. Maybe our worship of the Lamb will be all the more unthinkable because not only are we joining with those from every tribe, tongue, and nation, but because we are with those believers who we loved so dearly on earth. We are together doing at long last what God intended for us to do.

This is all speculation, of course. But whether the Endings really are Endings, or if they are the Ends to a Beginning, I know that this is true:

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:10

And:

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given him a gift that he might be repaid?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:33-36

I hope that I can sing praises standing next to Steve for eternity. I can't imagine anything better than being able to do what we ache to do together now.

Le Creuset

Last night, after birth class, Runza, and watching part of A Gentleman's Agreement with Clevi, we all noticed a very strong burning smell. It was obviously coming from somewhere outside, but it increased and increased as the night wore on. Later, Steve and I were smelling it as we attempted to go to sleep.

Steve: I hope someone knows that something is burning. I mean, we could be the only ones and we won't have called the fire department because we're lazy and we want to go to bed.
Amelia: Yeah. I don't want to be burnt to a crisp.
Steve: It's nice not to have any real attachments to our possessions, though.
Amelia: I've often thought about what I would grab if we had a fire.
Steve: I say we just grab the pots and go. That's easy.

Yes, we are both madly in love with our set of Le Creuset pots and baking ware. As I pondered our insufferable infatuation today at work, I made a list of ten reasons why we love Le Creuset. Here goes.

1. They come in adorable colors. Who wouldn't want to cook with such cheerful colors staring back at you?
2. They say "Made in France" on the bottom.
3. They clean up beautifully. Seriously, I had this meatloaf crusted in the bottom of this little fellow and without even giving it a chance to soak, the nasties came off with the Octopus Scrubber. Right away. Joy.
4. They can be used as a weapon. The enameled cast iron would definitely succeeded in laying someone out if it met their head. I feel confident in my kitchen.
5. They are featured on Julie and Julia. We love that movie, and the Le Creuset sealed the deal.
6. The enameled stoneware/cast iron does away with all of the fumes and contamination of Teflon. It's environmentally friendly! (Okay, that's cheesy, but whatever.)
   
7. There are tons of matchy-matchy accessories. My personal favourite is the most recent addition of Le Creuset to our kitchen: the Utensil Crock in the Dijon color.
8. They double as exercise equipment, for much of the same reasons as No. 4.
9. It was Steve's idea to put them on our wedding registry.
10. They make food friendly. And that makes us happy.

Hurrah for Le Creuset(!).

Pardon the messy stove.

Exercising

Once I get my exercise clothes and my tennis shoes on, I actually enjoy exercising. Of course, I have to convince myself of this every day (for, at the time, it's easier to believe that I like sitting under the covers in bed and reading a book much more than becoming a clammy out-of-breath disaster), but it's worth it. Thankfully, I have been able to be fairly consistent with exercising since the discover of the Wee Munchkin. Walking when the weather is nice, walking with Leslie (and Clara) on dreary cold days, doing a really funky salsa routine with FitMama and, most recently, going back to Jazzercise three times a week.

The hardest thing for me is to keep from going "all out." When I'm exercising, I like to give it my all and push harder and harder and...frankly, I can't do that right now. Jazzercise was a little frustrating last night because I had to modify so many of the routines to be low-impact that it was getting boring and stupid (or maybe I was just crabby...it was Monday, after all). At the same time, I sometimes worry that I might mess something up when I exercise, or eat (like eating tuna on the wrong day and the Baby showing up without any ears, or something), or look in the mirror funny. That's being melodramatic, but possessing an active imagination can easily lead to undue worry. God's truly in loving control. So, I keep trusting and resting and living and exercising and eating.

In other news, we go to our first of three "Birthing Classes" at the hospital tonight. I wish that I lived in a town with 50 million people so that I could be anonymous for once. Or, in a city like that, someone would surely be offering Bradley Method classes. Oh well. Steve says I'm doing well with being married in the place where I grew up.

Sometimes.

Knowing God

I have been reading sections of Psalm 119 this past week and have been amazed by how frequently the psalmist asks God to give him a desire for His word, to show Himself, to give him understanding, etc. The psalmist is not approaching the Lord and His word with a conjured up spirituality, as if he has to be emotionally prepped. He is earnestly dependent on the Lord for even the desire to love His precepts. This was convicting to me. How often do I deem it necessary in my prideful flesh to be "ready" for God...to be mentally psyched to "meditate"? And when it doesn't feel like it's "working," I get frustrated and depressed. In reality, the desire to know God and love His word is just as much a gift of His grace as everything else in my life. Reading through Romans, especially chapters 9-11, have brought home again the doctrine of election and the reminder that there is nothing that I have done to deserve or accomplish any means of grace. It is all a gracious gift from a loving God...for His purpose and to His glory.

Then I read this interesting quote from Packer's Knowing God:

We are, perhaps, orthodox evangelicals. We can state the gospel clearly, and can smell unsound doctrine a mile away. If anyone asks us how men may know God, we can at once produce the right formulae - that we come to know God through Jesus Christ the Lord, in virtue of His cross and mediation, on the basis of His word of promise, by the power of the Holy Spirit, via a personal exercise of faith. Yet, the gaiety, goodness, and unfettered spirit which are the marks of those who have known God are rare among us - rarer, perhaps, than they are in some other Christian circles where, by comparison, evangelical truth is less clearly and fully known.

How true! We can become so wrapped up in facts and methods and routines that the true delight of knowing God is diminished. True, we do need the disciplines of daily study in the Word and time in prayer, but these are the means to an end - it's about knowing God, not just saying that I haven't missed a day of Bible reading in a month. Dependence on God for the knowledge of Him and the desire to know and enjoy Him will hopefully do away with the, as Packer says, "dried-up stoicism" of being a Good Christian Girl, and will replace it with "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8).

Like the psalmist, I'm praying for this in my own life and in the lives of others.