“the very paradox of human existence, namely, that although man is a passing creature who often does merely strut and fret his short hour upon life’s stage, he is also more than a passing creature of an earthly day—for he is made for eternity, for God himself. Therefore, what happens to him and in him, as well as what is done by him, though of short temporal duration, has eternal value.” (James Boice)
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Claire arrived 4:44pm on Thursday, June 14th. We arrived at the hospital at 2pm after Jenn’s water suddenly broke at home. When we arrived at the hospital she was only at 4cm, which is not very far along. Even the nurse was expecting Jenn to be more towards 8cm. So we were expecting a long and hard labor and Jenn was contemplating getting an Epidural for pain. However, shortly after 4pm things started to change rapidly. At around 4:30 Jenn began pushing and only moments later at 4:44pm Claire was out! The midwife described it as a textbook perfect birth! Apparently they are very rare. And to think we were expecting a long and laborious birth!
Things afterwards went equally as smooth. With Matthew there was some struggle getting him to latch properly. This had cause Jenn’s nipples to be sore and feeding to be very painful. However, Claire was immediately an excellent feeder and made it very easy on Jenn. Claire is such a strong sucker that between feeding she’ll suck on her hand so hard that she sounds like a little pig.
Since things went so well and Claire passed all her tests, we only stayed in the hospital for the minimum 24 hours. We thank God for a smooth birth and a healthy beautiful baby girl.
I placed some photos of our experience online, including photos before the birth, during, and after. Click Here to see the photos
Christianity,Saturday, June 02, 2007
In a book I’m reading called “The Hermeneutical Spiral”, I found this very good illustration of why a Christian would want to spend lots of time in Bible study. It’s an excellent illustration because it sums up the truth about the value of God’s word in a way that the material side of our human minds can easily understand.
For the true believer there is very little as important as studying God?s Word seriously. Let me use an illustration. Suppose someone were to rush into your Bible study and tell you they had discovered gold coins all over your church?s back lot, and that in fact soundings had shown that the number of coins got greater every few feet all the way down to two hundred feet. It would take one-tenth of a second to clear the room, and you would not be content just to gather them off the surface of the ground. You would start digging, and soon you would be buying and learning to use the tools (back hoes, etc.) to dig deeper and deeper. That is the reality of Bible study; the deeper you go, the greater the rewards. Yes, you will be blessed at the surface level, but why stay there when you can dig deeper and find ever greater treasures?
Osborne, G. R. (2006). The hermeneutical spiral : A comprehensive introduction to biblical interpretation (Rev. and expanded, 2nd ed.) (21). Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press.
Health,Thursday, May 31, 2007
I had blogged a little while ago about two ingredients that react together to create high levels of cancer causing chemicals in fruit soda. Well, it’s still not old news. The sodas in questions are.
# Safeway Select Diet Orange
# AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage
# Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange
# Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail
# Crush Pineapple
In addition, “[The FDA] tested 24 samples of diet soda for benzene in the study. Around 79 percent (nineteen) of the soft drinks were found to have benzene above the permitted levels”. The best route is to avoid any soda that has sodium benzoate. And more broadly it may be a good idea to avoid any food that uses sodium benzoate. Apparently, salad dressings also use it.
Read the Entire Article Here
News,Thursday, May 31, 2007
In case you don’t already know, Jenn and I are very much against abortion. It seems pretty clear to us that killing babies at any time is a murderous evil that our government should not allow. The argument of freedom of choice for women is a very weak one seeing that no sane society allows murder to be a free choice. We don’t allow people to kill their children. We are shocked when we hear about a father or mother mass murdering their family. However, somehow it’s completely fine to kill children who are in the womb. Perhaps the fetus doesn’t look cute enough? Doesn’t touch our hearts enough? If it is aborted, it certainly will not have the opportunity. Some people come up with moderately understandable excuses in the case of rape, incest or genetic problems. But the reality is those are just excuses to make it seem okay to abort under any circumstance.
Now, it turns out my tax dollars are also supporting and subsidizing abortions. Technically, some of the money I work for on a daily basis is being directed toward funding abortions through planned parenthood. The thought makes me want to stop paying taxes , move out of this country, or somehow put a stop to this. R.C. Sproul had rightfully pointed out that this is how Americans make stealing legitimate. My money is being taken from me and used in opposition to me. This is really a place that the government has no reason to be funding. What is our government’s excuse for funding abortions? I can tell you now that it’s not a good one from my perspective.
Read these facts from an American Spectator Article on Planned Parenthood
In 2005 Planned Parenthood got $272 million in our taxes, twice the money it made from its 255,000 surgical abortions. Since 1987, Planned Parenthood has taken in $3.2 billion in taxpayer funds for its deadly agenda. So, since 1973 Planned Parenthood has aborted 3.8 million babies with the help of over 3.9 billion tax dollars.
Family,Thursday, May 31, 2007
Matthew had 3 birthday celebrations this year. One was the previous week before his actual birthday because my brother Michael is not always in town every week. He’s flying around the country one week and then home the next. So we scheduled one celebration during the time he was in town. The other celebration was just Jenn, Matthew and I at the children’s discovery museum. This was his real birthday day. Jenn and I gave him his gifts that day. Those photos were posted from Jenn’s new camera on an HP site somewhere, I’ll get the link later. The final celebration was on Mother’s day at Vasona park where he rode a mini train and played on a very cool playground that I used to play on as a kid. They still have the original airplane and fire engine. Click Here to see all the photos
The above photo was taken while we waited in a very long line. You can imagine that a lot of people were at this popular park on Mother’s Day. We were the next in line, anticipating the steam train’s arrival from it’s previous run. The problem was that it could not make it up the short incline before the station. They actually made several attempts to back up, gather steam power and try again. After three attempts and 15 minutes later, they brought out the diesel train to tow the steam train back to the station. The photo above shows the diesel train towing the steam train. Our ride was pulled by this green and yellow diesel train. I jokingly commented that they should convert all the steam train to diesel since they work so well! Oh yeah, they did that already. 
