Junior Squire

Disclaimer:  We haven't really "come out" to many people about this new development in our lives, so for those of you readers who know us personally, this is not an invitation to mention the news to others.  That said, this blog has always been meant to be an honest repository of my thoughts and musings about what God is teaching and showing me in life, and it seems odd to keep refraining from any mention of Junior.

We first found out about Junior a couple months ago during our visit to California.  I had been suspecting for a little while, but seeing the plus sign on the pregnancy test--combined with a blunt, "Yup, you guys are pregnant" from C's husband--still came as something of a shock.  It took some time to get used to the idea, particularly in light of my super-busy work schedule (preparing for a trial in September on top of two other cases in discovery and a mediation that I am handling myself, and drafting a Second Circuit brief on a criminal case that is near to my heart) and my concerns about my readiness to be a parent.  

Somewhere in the blur of getting used to the idea, we also got started on other basic holy-crap-this-is-for-real-we-need-to-get-ready tasks, like researching prenatal vitamins and obstetricians who were (a) reputable and (b) sufficiently convenient from a geographic standpoint, given our current home in Brooklyn, my office in Midtown, and our future home in New Jersey.  

I finally caught a mental breath after our first visit to the OB (whom we LOVE, thanks be to God), when we heard Junior's heartbeat and saw him on a sonogram for the first time.  Hearing his heartbeat and seeing the tiny being ("the tenant," according to our OB) floating around in my uterus ("the apartment") made him more of a real being, and less of a theoretical concept.  And then I felt like I had begun to be a parent.

I'm glad that the pregnancy process is long.  It is giving us time to prepare in practical ways (i.e. read a couple books, move apartments, buy a crib, etc.) and spiritual ways (i.e. begin what I anticipate/hope will be a lifelong habit of praying for our children, together, daily).  It is all happening slowly enough to feel manageable, too, which is very helpful.  Oftentimes I look at my calendar at work (which now features red numbers on each Wednesday, denoting the number of weeks old that Junior is), and I wonder how we could possibly be only in week X, because it felt like we were in week X-2 soooo long ago.  It's like time is crawling--and I think that is the right speed for me right now.  Our lives are about to change so drastically.  I don't traditionally deal well with change, let alone drastic change (marriage was an exception).  So I am thankful that God is allowing me to experience life and this pregnancy at a total snail's pace.  It is exactly what I need.

The weeks and months ahead hold much uncertainty for us.  I have learned the hard way--through three sets of friends who lost their babies post-birth this past year--that nothing is guaranteed.  So we try to keep our eyes on Jesus, to thank Him for each blessing we experience on the journey (e.g. confirmation that we didn't have have a missed miscarriage last week), but to hold on loosely to whatever He gives us along the way, knowing that everything is temporary.

Changing His Tune...

A week ago, I was struck with a debilitating bout of sciatica, which left me unable to walk without lots of pain.  It was so frightening.  Thankfully, God led me to a chiropractor who (together with my new daily stretching routine) seems to have fixed the problem, for now.

Of course, Mr. Squire is never one to take things too too seriously.  As soon as I started to improve (though with occasional signs of sciatica), he started spontaneously singing "My wife has sciatica!" around the house every night before bed.  The tune he chose was quite cheerful sounding, as if he was singing something more like "My wife won the lottery!"

So that went on for six days, until last night, when he changed the words to "My wife gave me sciatica!"  Seems he is now experiencing sciatica symptoms himself.  Poor guy.  But his new song is kind of funny. 

T-Rex

The other day, I came home from the gym to find this towel on the bed, together with this note.  I think it requires some explanation:  our towels are kept on a high shelf in a closet--one that is out of my reach.  Mr. Squire likes to joke that because I cannot reach said high shelf (among other high things), I am "stubby."  Consequently, his affectionate nicknames for me include "Stubby" and "T. Rex."

I have to admit:  I kind of love it.

Understanding Good Friday Better

I'm about to say something that will sound strange coming from a Christian:  a lot of times, I kind of forget about Jesus.

I have a strong sense of God the Father:  when I marvel at the mysteries of creation, see acts of compassion and love, and ask for direction in my life, it's God the Father that I'm thinking of.  The Holy Spirit also resonates with me in a very real way:  I am aware of His presence in those spiritual nudges and whispers of conscience and discernment, and in my prayer life.  

But Jesus?  I sing about Him and read about Him and claim to love Him--and in theory, I do, or I want to--but a lot of times I wonder if I know Jesus at all.  For starters, I don't really understand a lot of the things that He says in the Bible.  The old wineskins and new wineskins (see Mark 2) parable is beyond me.  And why did He sometimes tell people not to speak a word about Him, whereas other times He instructed people to tell everyone of what they had seen?  This is just a small sampling of the things I don't get about Jesus.

And then, there's the big things that I don't get about Jesus:  like... what did it really mean for Him to die for my sins?  I realize that that is a quadrazillion-dollar type question.  But it's so fundamental to our faith.  Why do I struggle with it so much?

The cool thing is that this year, I've been studying the Gospels verrry, very slowly.  Generally, I gravitate towards the Old Testament -- specifically, the first five books of the Bible, which are very powerful to me.  But in an effort to address this Jesus gap in my spiritual life, I decided to camp out in the Gospels for the year.  In other words, I decided to read about Jesus.  Slowly.  Over and over.  All year long.  

It's been good.  Between the Sunday sermons and Blackhawk sermons and the reading and what must be God's work in increasing my understanding, I'm actually starting to put some pieces together.  

One of the most critical aha! moments from this year came when I read Matthew 9 and finally understood what it meant.  There, Jesus heals a paralytic man, but before He does any healing, He tells the man that his sins are forgiven.  The Pharisees who are standing around accuse Him of blaspheming, and Jesus replies with something that I had never understood before:  "Which is easier: to say 'your sins are forgiven,' or 'get up and walk'?"  I think I must have just raced past this story a thousand times before in my life, because all of a sudden it clicked for me sometime this winter... of course it is easier to say to someone that his sins are forgiven, because who can really prove that except God?   Jesus knew that that was true, so He proved His authority over sin by doing the harder thing--telling the paralytic man to get up and walk--which required Him to actually perform a miracle.  And if Jesus could prove His authority over the harder thing, that should help the people believe that He was also capable of forgiving sin.

So simple!  (Not really.  At least not to me, for 30+ years.)  Every time I think about that passage, I'm spiritually tickled a little bit because it makes so much sense. But I didn't get it for such a long time.  

One other thing has been very powerful for me over the last few weeks.  In our Blackhawk series, we went over Isaiah 53 a few weeks ago and suddenly the passage made so much more sense.  The passage is about Jesus (that I knew), and it's written from the point of view of Israel at some point in the future, when they acknowledge Jesus as Lord (that part I did not know, and makes everything connect).  In connection with the exposition of that passage, which in itself was incredibly illuminating, the pastor presented a very effective and moving illustration of what it meant for Jesus to die for our sins...for my sins.  

It goes like this:  Imagine what would happen if each of our sins was recorded in writing.  How big would the volume be? More like...how many volumes would there be, and how thick would each be?  Let's assume we're all saints and in the course of our lifetime, we each produce sins that amount to one, inch-thick book (in which our sins are recorded in very tiny print).  Of course, we know that in reality, the magnitude and volume of our sins far exceeds that which is assumed in this hypothetical, but let's take a very liberal approach with ourselves for a moment.  It is supposed to be the case that each of us carries the weight of our own sins; we are each to bear our own punishment for our sins.  But God did not choose to do it that way.  No, He instead chose to impose the penalty for our sins on one person, Jesus Christ.

To illustrate, the pastor brought his young (12-year-old?) daughter to the stage, and gave her an inch-thick book to hold.  That represented her bearing the weight of her own sin.  So far, so okay.  But then, to illustrate what Jesus did in bearing the weight of multiple people's sins, the pastor started piling on additional inch-thick books for her to hold.  He added ten books to account for all the people in the front pew.  He then added eight or ten additional books to cover people in the second pew.  By this point, the books reached past the girl's chin and she began to totter under the weight of the books.  There were still a few hundred people in the congregation to "cover," though...and if the girl did what Jesus did, she would have been drowning under the weight of all those books.  They would crush her.

Jesus was crushed.  Not just under the weight of one church's sins...but...one church, times a community, times a city, times a nation, times all the nations, times a generation, times all generations -- past, present, and future.

I cannot even begin to fathom how big that sin must have been.  And there were mine, stacked right along with everyone else's.  That's what Jesus carried to the cross.  That's why He died there.  That's what He wiped clean there.

*crickets*

Uhhhhhhh.....

Yeah, I think I understand Jesus a little better now.  And that has made this Good Friday more meaningful.  Thank You for the cross, thank You for going to the cross. Thanks for making a way to give me life, Jesus.

"Generations" by Sara Groves

This tune has been replaying in my head for quite some time now.  I've loved it ever since hearing it for the first time a couple years ago.  It has such a convicting message:  the things we do have effects beyond ourselves; indeed, the habits we establish now affect generations to come.  This is such a Biblical principle, but it's pretty anti-American/individualistic thinking.  

Here's to turning/shuv-ing to Jesus once again, for the sake of not just us -- but the generations beyond.

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I can taste the fruit of Eve 

I'm aware of sickness, death and disease 

The results of our choices are vast 

Eve was the first but she wasn't the last 

And if I were honest with myself 

Had I been standing at that tree 

My mouth and my hands would be covered with fruit 

Things I shouldn't know and things I shouldn't see 

Remind me of this with every decision 

Generations will reap what I sow

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I can pass on a curse or a blessing 

To those I will never know 

She taught me to fear the serpent 

I'm learning to fear myself 

And all of the things I am capable of 

In my search for wisdom, acceptance and wealth 

And to say that the devil made me do it 

Is a cop out and a lie 

The devil can't make me do anything 

When I'm calling on Jesus Christ 

Remind me of this with every decision 

Generations will reap what I sow 

I can pass on a curse or a blessing 

To those I will never know 

To my great, great, great grand daughter 

Live in peace 

To my great, great, great grand son 

Live in peace 

To my great, great, great grand daughter 

Live in peace 

To my great, great, great grand son 

Live in peace, oh, live in peace 

Remind me of this with every decision 

Generations will reap what I sow 

I can pass on a curse or a blessing 

To those I will never know 

Oh, remind me 

Generations will reap what I sow 

I can pass on a curse or a blessing 

To those I will never know 

Oh, I may never know

Hello, Spring

It's chilly, it's rainy, it's sunny, it's warmish, it's breezy, it's constantly changing -- it's springtime in Brooklyn Heights.  (Attached is a photo of my favorite springtime bloom in the neighborhood -- flowering quince on Joralemon.)

This spring, we are experiencing the full gamut of emotions that tend to accompany this season:  anticipation and expectation, cleansing and a fresh start, the drudgery of yet another rainy day--yet knowing that without rain there are no flowers, and the growing pains of life budding, breaking free, and blooming.