Happy New Year

Well, it's a new year (2010), so I thought I'd post one of those posts that carry with them the good intentions to keep family and friends updated more regularly in the future.  It's a sin to promise what you're not likely able to complete, so I'll just leave it at "intentions."

We had twins in November (11/11/09), a boy and a girl whom we named Jonathan Isaac and Beatrice Christi.  At the time of writing, they are ill but no fever, so we're just trying to keep them comfortable.  Jon is on antibiotics for a secondary infection in his right ear.

The rest of us have colds too, but we are content in the mercies of our tender-loving Father and our dear Lord and Savior.  Their Holy Spirit sustains us.

I'm working from home as much as I can so that I can help Heather out.  We've taken a couple (more) weeks off of homeschool, so she needs to start Kessedi back up ASAP.  Interestingly, Kes and Emmet both seem to be advanced beyond where we left off formal schooling. 

Kessedi is beginning to bloom into a young woman.  She is taking seriously her preparation to be a godly wife and mother, deferring to others, and delighting in serving me and her mother.  I'm grateful to God for giving her godly friends and examples from whom she has learned to come to me without prompting and ask whether there is any way in which she can be more helpful to me.  She is such a help with the twins that sometimes she takes enough initiative to make me uncomfortable, but whoever said that being continually comfortable is desirable?  She has her faults to be sure, but when confronted with sin has true sorrow over it, hatred for it, and desire to please God out of love to Him.  I have reasonable hope that her good habits have had added to them the inward grace of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Emmet is in love with weapons and camo.  He knows that such things are good for him because they train him to be a protector, provider, and leader.  But I suspect he is mostly juts infatuated with the things in themselves.  He often shows a tender heart, but I must confess to observing that his love of his possessions often marginalizes any interest in others.  He has also inherited from me an almost extreme interest in having everything "just so" and can become quite vicious if someone inhibits his planned order of things.  This is, I think, the worst part of being a father--knowing that the faults in my children are no worse than I deserved for them on their behalf.  His responsiveness to instruction and discipline and the ordinary means of grace is encouraging, and I trust God to continue to do a work in his heart.  It is probably true that any who know him would find this quite a negative account, but it is mere realism about the state of his soul--a realism that is only possible because I have such confidence in the grace of Christ, secured in His sacrificial death and the power of His resurrection.  I am merely waiting upon the Lord for these to become Emmet's own personal confidence.  God is faithful; I trust that He will do it.

Karissa is growing in many ways but is quite sure that she is the queen of the universe, to whose will all things in heaven and earth must bend.  How thankful I am, concerning my dear daughter, that the gospel is true.  She has great confidence in her father's love, and her love is quite sweet to me as well.  We enjoy each other thoroughly, even when I must be instructing and disciplining her.  And I look forward to the day when her confidence in my love is eclipsed by her confidence in her heavenly Father's love in Christ.  I suspect that I will find her love to Him even sweeter than that which I already enjoy toward myself.

Heather is bearing up patiently under all of her burdens.  I cannot here complain of my wife, when I am so acutely aware that of all those souls entrusted to my care in this house, I suspect that I am giving her the least proportion of the care which she is due.  And yet she seeks to do all according to my wishes for the sake of the Lord who made her mine.  What a sacred trust this is, and may God help me to acquit myself well of it.  "Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her."  That alone can be the standard, and who is sufficient for such things?  Praise be to Him who has also given us the words, "Our sufficiency is of God."

In our home, I am hoping that this will be--even more than before--the year of the Word and the Spirit.  We did the M'Cheyne plan as entire family last year with much profit.  This year, we are switching to the Mastersline plan, and all are invited to join us at http://heb412.us.  What mister M'Cheyne said about his congregation is equally true about my family.  What they need most from me is my own personal holiness.  May God consecrate me to Himself, shaping me more and more into the form of Christ for His glory and their good.  How desperately I need the fruit of the Spirit, the character of my dear Lord and Savior!

For those who are interested in such things, the latest family photos are available at the following link: http://hakims.shutterfly.com

James