Bedtime Routines

One of my favorite parts of being a parent is the bedtime routine. We spend intentional family time together every evening as we put our son to bed. I go to great lengths to be available for this time, which means I shifted my work schedule so that I'm home every evening and if I'm hard at work at home I drop everything I'm doing to participate. It's a source of continuity amidst our chaotic schedule - our son looks forward to it and knows what to expect every time.

First is bath time. We don't do that every single night, but when we do it is my special time with him and I cherish it so much (and because I own that time Heather gets a short break from the chaos of the day). Every time we do bath I try to have something special to do - sometimes we have fizzy bath color tablets or we paint in the tub before the water is running or we find some toys that seem water safe and bring them to the tub. It's always an adventure!

Next is reading time. We usually allow the little man to choose 2-4 books to read (the quantity depends on his level of exhaustion and our evening schedule). Either Heather or I read these books with A, talking about the pictures, asking questions, and engaging as much as possible with the content so that he gets more than just words on a page from us.

We then move on to his Bible. We've used a number of kids Bibles since A was born, depending on his age (you can find a few we used here, here, here and here). Each had its strengths and weaknesses - some almost totally omit Jesus' death and resurrection, choosing instead to focus on the "classic" bible stories (David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark, etc). This is unfortunate, as no story is more central to their eternity or their spiritual growth than that of Jesus' sacrifice!

Our very favorite Bible, and the one we are currently using, is the Jesus Storybook Bible (found here). I cannot express enough how much I like this one. Every single story ties directly to Jesus. When discussing OT stories, it goes out of its way to make mention of someone who will come that will save us from our sin. When I read through the stories of God's love for His people it describes His covenantal love as the "Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love". It makes the stories emotional for me and I usually end our reading time with some tears in my eyes. I want A to know God's love - the full measure of grace and truth. Not just grace that doesn't recognize what God has commanded us to do for our own good and His glory. Not just truth that clouds our understanding that Jesus is the only one capable of atoning for our sin. And not a balance of the two, but full of both!

Then we pray. We used to have one person pray and we would ask A if he wanted to pray. If he did, then we would coach him through a simple prayer, otherwise one of us would pray. We've switched methods (thanks to a great suggestion by Heather) and now we each pray a little - this gives him encouragement and makes him much more willing to participate.

Lastly, we sing. One of us holds A and we sing together. We sing a modified version of "You Are My Sunshine" that takes out the "only sunshine" line and replaces it with his name (he isn't our only sunshine and he isn't the primary source of joy in our lives, that's reserved for Jesus).

You are my sunshine, my A sunshine
You make me happy, when skies are gray
You'll never know dear, how much I love you
Jesus thank you for my sunshine today

Jesus thank you for my A today

He enjoys the singing and we lay him down on that last line. Then we give him his little monkey and his Tigger doll - he holds one in each arm. Just before we leave the room, one of us always gives A one last bit of truth to fall asleep to...

Mommy loves you.
Daddy loves you.
But Jesus loves you most of all. He died on a cross for you because he loves you...

I love the blessing our little man is and I love his bedtime routine.

Entering Into Foster Care

Josh and I are excited to say that we’re planning to grow our family soon.

We are so very blessed to have had the opportunity to raise our son from a tiny bean in my belly to the big boy he is now. We are so thankful and in awe to have played that role in his life. This time, though, our role is going to be different. Josh and I have begun the process of applying to provide foster care.

We’ve felt called toward adoption since Day 1. We’ve generally leaned toward adopting domestically, but the sheer cost and paperwork process is daunting. We kept telling ourselves “This is not The Time. Later will be The Time. And we will know it.”

We always expected Josh’s income to jump once he got a full-time job. Positions in science can be pretty lucrative. But we’ve changed directions, and his new role in ministry is not going to leave us with oodles of extra money on a yearly basis. We no longer have an excuse to wait “until we have more”. We’ve accepted that our home does not have to be big; it does not have to be permanent; it does not even have to be “ours”. We’re still renting a two-bedroom apartment, and we have learned to be genuinely content with our blessings that God has chosen for us. We’re thankful for what we have, and we long to share it with children who have less. And there is a HUGE need for foster care, and adoption through foster care.

We’ve already been to an informational meeting. That’s the first step in the process. Our paper application is in the mail. We just need to get a couple of papers notarized before that part is completed. And then a long process of classes, homestudies and background checks will begin.

We still have a lot of questions. We don’t know how this will affect our 2-year-old. We don’t know what kind of baggage even a young child can bring with them (we’ll be fostering children under two). We’re trying to go into this well-informed and with expectations that are as realistic as possible. We know we’ll need loving and supportive people alongside us as we learn.

Most of all, we’re trusting in God to fulfill his promises:

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.” (James 1:2-6)

We’re trusting in God to equip us for this great unknown that we’re entering into. If he has called us to this, he will surely provide us with all that we need. We’re excited to see how he’ll work through this!

I’m going to try to maintain two sections in this blog, aside from progress posts. The first:

How you can pray for us

• Pray for open and honest conversations with people who’ve been there
• Pray for supportive connections
• Pray for the caseworker who will be assigned to us as a couple
• Pray for the hearts of the little ones who’ll be in our homes -- who might right now be going through the hurt that will lead them into our lives

And…

How you can help us

We’re going to eventually be looking for baby stuff- possibly a second crib, baby clothes, bottles. If you have any that you’re getting rid of (for free or cheap!) keep us in mind!

First Full Day of Full-Time Ministry

Life for the believer is full-time ministry -- we create and build culture because we reflect our creator and we tell everyone we can about Jesus.

But today I attended service at our church, then sat in my office all afternoon trying to connect people to community groups that could encourage them and challenge them in their walk with Christ. Essentially, I was paid to do everything I can to promote the spiritual growth of others.

Because I am still learning the ropes, it took me forever to do next to nothing...

And I couldn't be happier.

My wife summed it up nicely with this fantastic quote:

"I know that not everyone can be more than a volunteer. We are so, so very blessed to be able to do this full time."

In many ways today is the first day of the rest of my life. I've stepped away from comfortable financial opportunities and a fruitful early career in scientific academia to serve God through the local church. I cannot wait for what lies ahead...

The Weight of Tomorrow

At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. ~ C. S. Lewis in "The Weight of Glory"

In less than 24 hours, I will stand before an audience to summarize a portion of my research from the last 5 years. Afterwards, I will be behind closed doors, defending the choices I have made in that research and attempting to demonstrate my value as a scientist and an academic. If all goes as expected, I will be rewarded with the title of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the field of Biophysics.

The most common questions I receive are "Are you nervous?" and "How do you feel?"

Am I nervous?

The answer again and again is a resounding "no". I have nothing to be nervous about. I spent 4 years in my undergraduate career studying the digitization and analysis of biological information (bioinformatics). Then I went on to begin my graduate career, studying the motion of macromolecules using classical physics (computational biophysics). So, in all, I've spent 9 years studying this material. From a preparation standpoint, I should be ready.

That's not to say that I'm unrealistic about my expectations for tomorrow. I fully realize that there exists the possibility that I fail; that my committee decides that I am not qualified (yet) to carry the academic title that comes with a doctorate. But this realism does not immediately translate into anxiety. Instead, my lengthy preparation for this moment leaves me with a sense of peace, as I have done nearly all I could on my end, and I can comfortably leave the situation in the hands of my creator. I will answer every question to the best of my ability and give a clear picture of the boundaries of my knowledge and understanding.

How do I feel?

This is a different question entirely. I often respond with "fine" or "ok". The intent of the question is discern my level of preparedness and anxiety, to which my response is the same as above. But, in a moment of clarity, I decided that the best description of my emotional, spiritual, and physical state is one of "heaviness".

There is a weight resting on my chest. A heavy weight that presses harder when I think through the shift ahead of me. My post-doctoral plans are very, very different than those of most of my graduate school colleagues. They will not carry me into a long and storied career of scientific research that cures ailments and brings new and interesting knowledge to mankind. Nonetheless, I'm more excited about my chosen path than I ever was about the scientific career. The ailments I hope to treat and the knowledge I desire to acquire might have far greater impact for the eternal and the unseen than any on the path I already had before me.

In "The Weight of Glory", one of my favorite pieces by C.S. Lewis, Lewis paints a few incredible word pictures that capture the significance of the eternal. One of the most quoted is the following:

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

When you ask me to talk about the things that I am most passionate about, I have a tendency to get very emphatic and excited. I have no fear of making my opinion known, to talk up a storm, and to share every detail I know about a subject. These passions can range from my scientific interests, to the details of Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, to Project Blue Book (the Air Force's systematic review of UFO sightings), just to name a few. But one passion stands above the rest -- my savior and leader, Jesus.

I consider myself an extremely self-aware, self-reflective person. I love to mark moments in time, to "build an altar" if you will in the moments and places where I have met God intimately. This was common practice for God's people throughout scripture: whenever God made himself clear to man, an altar was built to mark the place and the occasion.

For me, this is one of those moments. Nine years of work and study is coming to its end. My career trajectory is shifting dramatically to fall more in alignment with my passions. From tomorrow forward, nothing will be the same.

God has given me so much and I'm aware of the declaration that much is expected from me. My hope is that my ceiling is high. My heart feels heavy and I can't wait to consider more and more the weight of His Glory -- both in this life and in the next.

Heading Downstream

Living fish may go with the stream at times, but dead fish must always do so. There are plenty of such in all waters: dead souls, so far as the truest life is concerned, and these are always drifting, drifting, drifting as the current takes them. Their first inquiry is — what is customary? God’s law is of small account to them, but the unwritten rules of society have a power over them which they never think of resisting. ~Spurgeon in "Flowers From a Puritan's Garden"

There is a steady flow from our culture and our world that would have us surrender to the current. We could simply relax and enjoy the view as we drift further downstream. It is said that ignorance is bliss and this could not be truer than on this lazy river. Often, we do not know where we are headed. We do not know what lies at the end of the river. We don't know what sea we are floated towards. But we let go and "go with the flow".

We have an incredibly short time on this Earth. The average human lifespan accounts for less than 4% of the time that has passed since Christ was born. The fortunate among us will live to see a few previous generations leave this world, replaced by a few new ones. They will see the rise of new ways of thinking, of new philosophies, of new gods, and of new pleasures previously unimagined. But each these will pass away, as will every person that saw them come and saw them go.

And yet the scriptures speak frequently of the eternal things. These are things without any lifespans. They will exist forever. The scriptures insist that we are among those things. That we, despite having lifespans in the temporal, will last beyond in the eternal. We are not God, but we are like him. Though we have not always been, we will always be from this point forward as beings with souls that transcend the temporary.

So given what we know about our forever home and this temporary residence, why do we still insist on chasing after pleasures and pastimes with no eternal significance? The only joy worth pursuing is found in the soul-satisfying pleasure of knowing and savoring the Messiah, who conquered the very source of limit in our lives: death.