(Do you need a moment to think that through?... Take your time...)
:)
I’ve had a lot going on the last couple of years. Met a gal, pretty sweet; we dated for a while. I went to Thailand. The last child in my home moved out, joining Job Corps in Astoria, Oregon. I broke up with that gal. It was a mutual decision and done kindly on both sides.
I signed up for eHarmony and got serious about finding someone to share my life with. Whew! That was quite the process. I probably had over 300 matches. Sent initial, canned questions to 200 or so. Got to the point of emailing 30 or 40. Twenty or so of those I dated. Ten or so I took out four or five times. One of them was an instant click and over a couple of months we went from virtual greetings to betrothal. We saw no need for taking too much time so we married last December.
How’s that for something positive?
I got home one afternoon and she asked me to come into the bedroom to talk and handed me a white plastic stick that looked sort of like one of those digital thermometers) somehow I still feel the need to shake those vigorously before using).
Where there should have been a digital readout indicating a fever or something were two thin lines. I knew what it was, what it meant. Still... I had trouble applying the information to my life. It was like seeing data from AMANDA (Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array) reinforcing the theories which point to additional dimensions. I get it. I see what it is saying. I just have trouble applying it.
It was a pregnancy test.
It was positive.
Positive.
Like the heart of atoms, those tiny beating hearts of all matter, positrons... positive.
I’m going to be a father.
Biologically.
Sometime in August.
I am going to raise another child. Physically, emotionally, spiritually.
My wife is a wonder. She is from Belize. Her spiritual life is very important to her and that is very refreshing. In my first marriage consistent prayer and biblical readings were attempted now and then, but never sustained.
We are reading from the beginning (Genesis), but intersperse those reading with readings germane to Sunday Sermons and other interests.
We pray all the time. Sure, every meal, but, each morning, as we go to bed, and whenever there is a question, issue, or event which needs our attention.
Here is a big one: We met the doctor who is going to deliver our child. I like her. A "plain folks" type who looks like she might be as much at ease bucking hay as discussing delicate issues regarding pregnancies. My wife has had fibroid tumors removed and one of those had been large enough to weaken the uterus wall, making the birth dangerous. There are a half dozen or so still, up to six centimeters. Those will inhibit the expansion of her womb and there is a chance that there won’t be enough room for the child late term. Which might force us to have her deliver early.
We welcome your prayers.
Good news from the blood work. Risk of Down's Syndrome is one in 500 and trisomy 18 one in 10K. Very low risk.
Meanwhile, back at Greenleaf Manor, the little woman is busy feathering her nest. She has rearranged every room in the house. She even talked me into taking a hammer to the bricks which surrounded the wood stove (now warming someone else’s shop).
We are talking color schemes for the living room, kitchen and den, errrr... baby’s room. (The man cave will need to move to the attic.)
I love the passion she feels for things of the spirit. Night before last we tackled the first five chapters of the book of Job. I went back to the first post of my blog Job’s Tale and shared it with her. I pointed out the pattern of the book and how I felt a small piece of the book was misplaced (Satan approaches God, The conflict is set up, the three friends arrive, wait, and then the discourse begins with each friend speaking in turn three times, Job replying each time, then a weird gap in the pattern for the third friend, then youth speaks, and then the interchange between God and Job).
I’ve been busy at work, busy with side projects (some video work in the works), working on that novel, and getting used to my new life.
All good.
