Hillekes singing Wondrous King, All-Glorious

Hearing this tonight reminded me of the power of music in this setting. I would hope that more and more of us would think of this as a great way to encourage and minister to those who are ill and bed-ridden. This is exactly how I’d want to be encouraged. I’d want to hear the Psalms and the great hymns of the Christian Church to remind me in my time of struggle.

When you don’t know how to comfort someone with words, why not just sing to them. Then you don’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing. Just remind them in song of what the Lord’s promised to us and to them.

This singing was a blessing to us and it gave us something to put our energies toward. It also was a picture of our unity in wanting to see our brother be encouraged as he laid in that hospital bed. We weren’t each just offering our own solitary words of encouragement, but rather as an extension of the church we were unified in our encouragement and glorifying it in a way that our words just couldn’t do alone.

Well, this post has been four months in the making for several reasons: 1.) I just haven’t made it a priority to post and 2.) I wanted to let some time pass and write about it after the newness and excitement had worn down.

Sarah and I began taking the Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes at Sarah’s request. At first, I was skeptical and not really enthusiastic about going to the classes because I thought, “Well, we’ve already had 2 kids. Why start something new on #3?” I’m so thankful that we ended up going.

We took our class from a local certified Bradley Method instructor in Monroe, Louisiana with two other couples who were both having their first child. The classes were a great time of encouragement and group awareness of things that we could do to prepare ourselves for the birth. The classes provided a venue to purposefully set aside a time each week to talk about the expectations of the birth and the things that we needed to decide. It brought Sarah and I together and allowed us to really feel like a team.

The class was a great encourager to me as a third time father-to-be. On the previous two births I felt that I was at the mercy of the nurses and doctors to tell me what was happening at the births of our sons. I didn’t know what stage we were at or what to expect. I often thought when things happened during the lengthy delivery, “Is this good, bad, or expected?”. The Bradley Method trained and educated both of us to know when and how things would happen, so that I could be more than a confused bystander during the birth, but an educated coach and advocate for my wife.

The actual birthing method put forth by Dr. Robert Bradley in the 1960′s was to view the birthing process in a natural way that focused on healthy moms and babies coming into the world in due timing without the use of medicines and imposed timing.

This is exactly what happened for us. We were able to have a healthy baby boy despite going in to the hospital with our son in a breach position. Our wonderful OB was able to turn the baby by procedure of “external cephalic version.” That’s just a fancy way of saying she  moved the baby with her hands  similar to kneading bread.

Elias Warren Richey was born almost 24 hours later without the use of any pain medication or epidural. It was due to the preparation and the thinking behind the Bradley Method. I’m so glad we took the class and I highly recommend the class to first, second, third, or 5th time moms AND dads.

We give it a day! And we don’t even really give it that day. We are so partied out ahead of time that we don’t even want to do anything but exchange some gifts and eat all before the day is half-over. This year, we aren’t opening all our gifts on December 25. We aren’t exchanging stockings with some of our family until after the new year, which is still in the 12 Days of Christmas. We are planning some meals and special get togethers during these 12 days to try to have a blast and really party hard because we have great reason to party. We are salmon swimming upstream in a culture of Christmas fatigue. Christmas needs more than a day and that is how we are going to try to operate.

So many things can be said, but family must be viewed in light of the true family—the Church of the Lord Jesus. I want my kids to see our family unit flowing out of the church family. It is the Church that should get our focus when trying to make corrective measures to improve our families. We’ll be better off focusing on THE Church family and give our families time and energy in as much as they are subjected to the church. Not neglecting our individual families but rather learning how to live in them day in and day out because of the greater nurture and admonition of the Church family.