The Weakness of Our Flesh; the Strength of Adult Diapers

I mean actual physical weakness by the title. Heather and I are ill again! Hopefully it's just a bad cold. Some will say that this is due to neglect of coat-wearing. I offer this linguistic evidence that my infection didn't actually come from lack of warmth: when it got worse, we didn't begin to call it a "freezing." The physicians agree with the linguists.

In an effort to get Heather a nap, I took the older three shopping for the bulk of the day. What did she do? Cleaned, baked, cooked, organized. And, oh yeah, cared for the twins. What a wife and mother! Thanks be to God.

Karissa was in a diaper. I was in no condition to be changing a handful of underwear. So, of course, she did great. Told me when she needed to go. Held it until we got there. Kept her diaper clean. Hey--if all it takes is a diaper, I see size extra-small depends in her near future.

The twins are growing like weeds. And it's getting frighteningly easy to see Kes and Emmet as future-adults.

That concludes our summary. I'm going home. I didn't get half the work done that I was hoping to after we got back, and if I am going to get twice the work done tomorrow, then I'd better sleep.

Back in the Office

Since the twins were born, I've been trying to work from home.  By God's mercy, things have gone fairly well, and now I'm back working from the office.

I do have a cold, and there is a session meeting tonight, so I fairly expect to be exhausted tomorrow.

By the way, I've updated the family photos through January at: http://bit.ly/cYDqVM

The Family: God's Bible School, Youth Group, Women's Group, Singles Group, Men's Group, Seniors Group, and Small Group

I just noted the following while reading Matthew Henry's Family Religion:

The texts for this sermon are 1 Cor 16:9 and those like it that refer to the members of certain households as "the church in their house."


The main point of the sermon is "'That the families of Christians should be little churches', or thus, 'That wherever we have a house, God should have a church in it.'" (p29)


Henry quickly adds, "Not that I would have these family churches set up and kept up in competition with, much less in contradiction to, public religious assemblies, which ought always to have the preference" (p29).

Much of what is described in this book is simply the family as that institution of God through which He has designed to give a great deal of blessing.  It is interesting to me that where the family as constituted in this biblical way has declined so much, rather than build back up the ancient altar that lies in ruins, we have erected our own collection of institutions--sunday schools, youth groups, small groups, womens groups, mens groups. 

And while it is good to be watchful against family religion coming into competition with the public means of grace, these other institutions that man has now erected have competed far more fiercely with those public means of grace.  They have been the cause of much diminishing of the stated services of the church and in many cases have even replaced them!

Seeing this, then, I put my knees and lips to prayer that God would so pour out His Spirit upon the Lord's Day assemblies of the congregation and the daily assemblies of the households that these other institutions might begin themselves to crumble and leave the church free to do her gospel duty in announcing to their unconverted neighbors the good news of Christ. 

Our man-made institutions are consuming so much of our time on the Lord's Day and every day that this duty is almost never now performed, and even when it is, we call the world to come participate not in those great things that God has designed but the cheap imitations that we have concocted. 

This is not to say, of course, that our cheap imitations have not been or may not continue to be used of God.  Just that I long so very much that we would instead enjoy the simplicity and richness of the genuine divine articles!

Of course, these institutions have come to be so precious that even speaking as I have in this note is now so possibly inflammatory that I declined even to put it in my notes, which are kept publicly at the church blog.  For this reason, I make this observation only as a private husband and father.  Though I make the prayers for the outpouring of the Spirit of God very much as a pastor!

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

Purple-Footed Pooper

5a.m. feeding time.  We (sort of) have the babies on a schedule now, but the first part of each feeding is completely unavailable to daddy--which means I can actually do some family blogging.

In case we forget over the years to come... Jon and Bea were scheduled for delivery on the 17th (today!), but at our appointment last week, they seemed ready enough to come out that Dr. Shepherd thought our choices were between a planned c-section for the 11th or an emergency one sometime over the weekend.  I'm grateful that we went with the planned.

Everything went great on Wednesday the 11th.  Jonathan was born at 12:05 and weighed 5lbs 12oz.  Bea was born at 12:06 and weighed 5lbs 6oz.  Right from the beginning the children did a good job of eating, burping, pooping, sleeping.  Of course, we're only 6 days in, so that sentence may seem either prophetic or ironic by the time we're a few weeks out.

Heather, however, began to develop symptoms of preeclampsia.  One of the labs necessary for a positive diagnosis isn't back yet, but she received treatment as if she had it, because the condition is too dangerous to sit around and wait for a 24 hour lab to verify.  Basically, it includes pregnancy-induced high blood pressure and protein in the urine, and if untreated causes eclampsia, which includes seizures and brain hemorrhage.

The worst part (because there was no brain hemorrhage or seizures) was actually the treatment: magnesium.  It was very hard on Heather, but she bore it patiently,and eventually the symptoms of preeclampsia subsided, allowing us to come home late on Monday the 16th.

Which brings us to the meaning of the title of this post.  So far, whenever Jon exerts himself to poop, his left foot turns a deep shade of purple.  I don't know if we should be drawing any medical conclusions from that, but it is otherwise amusing.  I hope that he will live either to be glad to have grown out of it or mortified that he hasn't.  For now, however, he is our little purple-footed pooper.  It's like having a color-changing doll that lets you know when it needs a new diaper!

A Window into My (Current) Parenting Style

I'm still growing as a parent, and I hope that will never stop.  But a New Post over at the "Little Hakims" blog might give interested people a glimpse into where we are right now.

Hakim Family Tweeting

Because Twitter limits me to 140 characters, I'm more encouraged to update it more often.  Isn't that silly?  As if I couldn't just employ such discipline here at the blog.  Well, it is what it is.  When I want to make more detailed installments, I'll do so here and tweet a link to the blog post.  So, if you're interested in following us, you can do so at two Twitter accounts:

http://twitter.com/mcheynedevos (family devotions)

http://twitter.com/jameshakim (personal updates)