Pure Church

I went to bed Thursday morning at 2:30am. After a rousing round of CivIV and a couple great chapters in To The Golden Shore, I finally turned in. Not exactly a wise use of time and energy... mixed at best. But the foolishness of not resting properly came home quite suddenly when my over-nine-months-pregnant wife woke up at 7-something and announced, "I think my water broke."

We've been at the hospital all day. And among other things, the Lord has shown me how inadequate rest really does work against abundant, sustained joy. Not that it succeeded... but wrestling alternately with a bean-bag chair and a side chair covered in plastic for a few minutes of sleep while waiting for the labor to actually start... has prompted a reconsideration of my night time routine and its effect on my spiritual life. I'm reminded of reading somewhere that Lloyd-Jones would often ask people struggling with various spiritual issues/depressions if they were getting enough sleep. Not that I'm at all qualified to offer a second opinion to Lloyd-Jones, but I think the good doctor was on to a simple, elegant truth: we "do better" when we rest. Or, as Matt Schmucker would put it, "rest before you get tired." I need to remember and practice this wise counsel.

Turns out "junior" isn't quite ready to enter this world. So, my wife and the nurse sent me home for sleep. I'll be returning bright and early tomorrow morning to participate as they induce labor.

I will, by God's grace, be in a much better frame of mind as I'm now going to bed... thankful, joyful, and filled with the marvel of welcoming new life and the glorious hope of celebrating this child's second birth at some point in the future, Lord willing.

All that's left to determine is will the name be Charis Eirene or Titus Ezekiel. What do you think?