Baby: The First Dozen Days

Laura Marie turned12 days old last evening.  Some thoughts from the past couple weeks:

  • When Carolyn was in the throes of childbirth, at one point she stuck out her bottom lip.  She does this when she’s sad or hurt.  A moment later the baby came out and started crying, and she stuck out her lower lip.  She looked just like her mommy, only seconds after being born.  It was so cute!
  • Nothing could prepare us for how awesome it is to have a new little baby.  Nothing could prepare us for how extremely challenging it is to have a new little baby.  This whole experience has provided further evidence for the axiom which says that the most rewarding things in life can also be the most challenging.
  • Several days ago some friends stopped by.  It was a mom and her three small children.  As her four-year-old son looked at Laura Marie, he told me, “Um, Pastor Nathan?  Our mommy used to have some babies, and now they’re us!”  And he grinned real big.  It struck me that it really won’t be too long before Laura Marie is a smiling four-year-old whose mommy and daddy used to have a baby, and now it’s her.
  • The way people have treated us in recent weeks helps me to better understand the gospel.  So many people–and I mean sooo many!–have been so generous to us!  They gave us everything we needed for the baby.  They gave us money.  They came to four baby showers.  They sent cards–we still get at least one in the mail every day.  We have so many gift cards that we don’t even spend money anymore except for rent and utilities.  And our church family has brought us dinner 11 days in a row!  We are so grateful to so many people.  Those around us have been a tangible expression of God’s love, grace, and care.  There is simply no way to thank them enough or express how much their kindness means to us.  That’s how it is with the gospel: God has given us salvation in Jesus Christ, and there’s no way we could ever repay Him or thank Him enough.  All we can do is be thankful and love Him in return.  Wow, we are so crazy blessed.
  • Carolyn and I marked our fifth wedding anniversary yesterday.  They say that five years is the ideal time to have children.  You’ve had enough time to become established in your marriage relationship, but you’ve not become too set in your ways.  We hit the five-year mark when the baby was 12 days old.  Guess we couldn’t have timed it much better!
  • Carolyn and I were married at 2:00 in the afternoon, and that morning I sat in the living room wearing a tuxedo and watching The Andy Griffith Show with our friends Derrick and Joy while I waited for the big moment to arrive.  When Carolyn was in labor, there was an all-day Andy Griffith marathon that played in the background most of the time while we waited for the big moment to arrive.  Strange how The Andy Griffith Show has popped up to soothe me on the two biggest days of my life.
Published in: on June 20, 2009 at 11:45 am Leave a Comment

Laura Marie Hyde

Laura Marie is here!  She was born on Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 5:01 p.m.  She weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces and 20.5 inches long.  We brought her home yesterday afternoon.  Mom & baby are both doing great!

I’ll write more whenever I get a chance…which could be after she goes to college.

Published in: on June 10, 2009 at 8:42 pm Leave a Comment

9 Months

Carolyn is nine months pregnant.  Now I understand the expression “pregnant with anticipation.”

Published in: on June 3, 2009 at 9:46 am Leave a Comment

When Perspectives…and Cars…Collide

Last night I got a lesson in perspective.  While I was on my way to the volunteer training class at the Eastern Shore Pregnancy Center, I got into a minor accident when I was just a couple minutes away from the center.

Obviously, it stunk.  The car has some damage that needs to be fixed.  The car seat that we’re using to bring the baby home from the hospital is in that car, and Carolyn could go into labor at any moment.  We’re going to have to shell out at least 250 bucks and maybe 500.  I don’t have names of any witnesses to verify what happened.  All that: bad.

But the more I’ve gotten to thinking about it, the more good stuff I’m starting to see.  No one was hurt.  The other vehicle was not damaged.  Carolyn and I have good insurance.  The damage to our car could have been much worse–at least it’s still driveable and will probably only need one panel replaced.  I could possibly have been given a citation for a moving violation.  (I would have fought it in court, but that’s no fun to have hanging over you.)  And I learned more about what to do in that situation if it should ever happen again.

The more I got to thinking about this, I realized how limited my perspective usually is.  When something bad goes down, I tend to look at it and simply say, “That’s bad.  I wish that hadn’t happened.  I want this situation to change.”  But sometimes we have to lift up a rock before we can see all the little signs of life underneath it.  Circumstances might be tough or painful, but God is often at work doing something that’s good right in the middle of it, whether or not it’s something we ever see or know about.  And even when we just see the bad, it could often be a whole lot worse.

On a related note, this also taught me a lesson about control.  I’ve replayed the accident many times in my head, and I can’t think of a single thing I could have done differently to prevent it from happening.  So I’m having to come to terms with the fact that I’m not in control.  I already knew, of course, that I’m not in control of many external aspects of my life.  But I at least want to be in control when I’m on the road!  The fact that an accident could happen and there’s nothing I could do to prevent it is difficult for me to swallow.  Like everything else, however, God is the only one who is ultimately in control.  And that’s a good thing.

Published in: on May 29, 2009 at 12:05 pm Comments (2)

Rain

If you stop and think about it, it’s kind of weird how sometimes a whole bunch of water falls out of the sky.

Not only that, but it’s also weird how we have an entire industry based on trying to figure out when it’s going to happen.

Published in: on April 15, 2009 at 1:29 pm Comments (4)

Getting Close

Carolyn is now due in less than two months!

Published in: on April 10, 2009 at 12:08 pm Comments (3)

30 Weeks and Counting

Carolyn is at 30 weeks.  Hard to believe we’re three-quarters of the way there!

Published in: on April 1, 2009 at 4:53 pm Leave a Comment

What’s A Sermon?

Just now I went to the kitchen here at work to get the goods to make some coffee.  As I passed one of the classroom doors, a boy came over and asked what I was doing.  “Writing a sermon,” I said.

He asked, “What’s a sermon?”

If you ever want to force yourself to bring clarity into your life, get a preschooler to follow you around for a day and ask questions.

When he asked this question, I realized I had about two seconds to clearly and succinctly explain my life’s calling.  Preaching is the central task not only of my job, but my vocation (the distinction between the two will have to wait for another post).  Suddenly I was faced with explaining in simple terms what exactly it is that I do.

So I told him, “A sermon is where you study the Bible and then share with people what you learn.”

I’m grateful for that encounter and that penetrating question because it forced me to return to my task with renewed purpose, intentionality, and clarity.  A sermon is where you study the Bible and then share with people what you learn.  That means a sermon is not:

  • a chance to tell that story I’ve been itching to tell (which, of course, could somehow be squeezed into the sermon disguised as an “illustration”).
  • a platform for airing my opinions, frustrations, and personal biases.
  • an opportunity to relive my childhood dreams of being a performer.
  • an avenue for telling my favorite jokes.
  • a channel for voicing the latest trends in church ministry.
  • a way for me to tell people what I think… supported, of course, with Scripture.  (If anything is supported with Scripture rather than based on Scripture, that should be a red flag.)
  • the time to try to impress people and get them to like me.
  • for the purpose of showing everyone how spiritual or knowledgeable I am.

Now obviously it’s okay–and often even helpful–to tell stories, crack jokes, share personal illustrations, implement effective speaking practices, and so on.  But all of these things are secondary to the biblical text.  The point of a sermon is to share what God says, not what I say; it’s about God’s Word, not mine.  If I begin with my ideas and simply wrap it in Scripture like a Bible fajita, where the meat is my ideas instead of God’s, I’m not preaching a sermon.  An authentic sermon begins with God’s thoughts and expresses them through the preacher.  It will look different with every preacher, just as the sunlight looks different shining through different stained glass windows.

By the way, after giving my definition of a sermon, the boy merely said, “Oh,” and ran off to play.  Sometimes that’s the same response I get after preaching a sermon, but again, that’s for another post….

Published in: on March 18, 2009 at 10:55 am Leave a Comment

Random Thoughts in Alphabetical Order: The Letter A

Recently I heard a comedian sharing some random thoughts in alphabetical order.  What a clever idea for a comedian–it eliminates the need for those forced, awkward transitions!  It’s also a great idea for the random world of blogging.  So I thought I’d set out on a journey to share some random thoughts in alphabetical order.  It will take however long it takes.  Today we begin, of course, with the letter A.

  • A is for apples.  They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away.  I can’t think of anything more untrue than this.  Since Carolyn has been pregnant, she’s eaten at least one apple every day, and during this same span of time she’s been to the doctor more frequently than ever in her life.
  • A is for ADD.  I’m about as un-ADD as you can get, but I’ve discovered a new phenomenon: PADD (Preaching Attention Deficit Disorder).  For some reason when I’m preaching I often struggle to filter out stupid or irrelevant thoughts.  Sometimes they pop into my mind and go right out my mouth before I can ascertain their appropriateness.
  • A is for age.  Right now I’m the same age that Jesus was when He was crucified.  But today I was feeling much, much older when I was outside on the playground with three- and four-year-olds and I got totally winded before they did.  When Troy Aikman was my age, he retired from a Hall of Fame career as an NFL quarterback.  In baseball, Red Sox second baseman Bobby Doerr retired from his Hall of Fame career at the age of 33.
  • A is for appetite.  And call it a sympathy symptom or whatever you want, but it has been insatiable the past 25 weeks.
  • A is for Anabaptist.  And I’m glad to be one.  If you want to learn more about who Anabaptists are, check out the Third Way Cafe.
Published in: on February 24, 2009 at 5:24 am Comments (2)

Principles & Principals

This afternoon I was part of a pretty exciting meeting.  Several pastors and church leaders from our community met with the top education administrators in north Worcester County.  It started out great because lunch was provided, but then it got even better.  The churches’ agenda was simple: we wanted to find out how we can help and support our local public schools.

After Pastor Daryl McCready from SonRise Church and Pastor Gary Baer from Buckingham Presbyterian Church opened the meeting, one of the principals who was there observed that kids who are in church tend to be more successful in school than those who are not involved in a church.  So he said the best thing we can do is work to connect unchurched families to our churches–which, of course, is already foundational to our mission!

Several of the pastors commented afterward that they were surprised by the meeting.  The school administrators, rather than coming prepared with a long list of unfunded projects, had one simple request: Mentors.  One heartbreaking story after another was shared about kids who don’t have a caring adult in their lives.  I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room!  Rarely have I been to a meeting with so much passion, drive, and commitment to action.

I admire the way they were so focused on the one need which can have the greatest impact; and which, incidentally, the Church is most equipped to meet.

So now the church leaders will meet again to discuss practical ways we can plug our congregants and ourselves into the mentoring programs that the schools already have in place.  I’m so excited about the potential!  I’ve already talked with the principal of one of the elementary schools in our community, and we’ll be meeting soon to discuss how CrossWay can begin serving and partnering with them.

God is as much at work as He’s ever been!

Published in: on February 11, 2009 at 3:58 pm Comments (4)
« Older Entries