Thoughs on Truth

I really enjoyed the message at church yesterday. Actually, I had been looking forward to it for quite a while. We've been working through a series based on Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, so I knew what was coming.

I don't have the "average" background of a pastor. My family stopped going to church for various reasons when I was about 4, I would go with a friend of mine through my childhood and teen years, but Christianity was definately not the main influence on my world view. Through my life I've been exposed to many different views, religious, political and scientific. Because of my cuirious nature, I would take in all these views, discect them, and take what I could from them.

For a time when I was a teen I studied religions, from Celtic druidism (paganism) to Islam, to cults (mormonism and the watchtower society mostly), a bit of hinduism etc. I was interested in why people followed these religions, just as much as i was curious why people would have no belief in God at all.

Through all these experiences and studying, I couldn't deny that there was truth in these other belief systems, that there was truth in scientific theories, and there was truth in the lives of people who had no concept of diety at all.

Of course, I mostly kept all this to myself - I had noticed that many christians feel that we have a monopoly on truth. I mean, after all, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life - so truth can't possibly exist outside of Christianity.....

However, the Bible disagrees. It says the whole earth is full of the glory of God, that creation proclaims the glory of God, that He is everywhere and there is no where we can go and notbe in His presence. Paul quoted secular (pagan) prophets and writers of his time when trying to bring people to the true God.

Think of it this way...ancient cultures would worship the sun, bcause they knew that the sun was what made their crops grow and would make them prosperous. That is true (trust me, I did a science project on photosynthasis when I was a kid...no light = no plants). Their was truth in their religion, the only problem was that they didn't go far enough.

I think this happens a lot. I genuinly believe that if people seek out truth, seek out all of God, that they will find Him, that's what Jesus said, right? So people set out in a search for truth in whatever form they choose (religous, scientific, philosophical) and find some. There is truth in any religon out there. In fact, I can remember agreeing with some of the articles of satanism at one point (not sure what ones and not gonna look it up right now). What happens is that smewhere along the path serching for truth people find religion (be it islam, hinduism or christianity) and then stop looking. Just like those who used to worship the sun, they don't look far enough.

I had a friend who was JW. My heart ached for her (still does, she broke off contact, I think I may have gotten her in trouble), she wanted to know truth. Every conversation I had with her I worked to find common ground in what we believed. I didn't cut down her beliefs, I didn't tell her she was wrong, but helped her to understand where she was right. truth has an amazing ability to reveal lies in its own way, we don't need to do that.

And it's not like Christianity is all truth either. The early church had to learn that it was not true that followers of Christ had to first become Jews. It is not true that God loves a stright, sexually pure individual more than a promicuous homosexual one. It is not true that smoking/drinking/whatever makes you useless as a folower of Christ, and yet this is what (at times) people have been either pressured to feel or outright told.

God is so much bigger than us. So much bigger than any concept of Him that we might come up with. he can not be contained in a building, in a denomination, even in all the doctrines and beliefs that make up christianity. We need to continually be seeking Him, be seeking truth, to continually draw closer to Him as he reveals himself to us.

And we need to be open to the truth that we see around us instead of being scared of it and writing it off as wrong or evil. We need to encourage people with whatever ammount of truth they have, and pray that their hunger and thirst for truth will continue to lead them to God. We need to find common ground between beliefs, discussing what we share and then finding reasons for where we differ, instead of debating over things that we're not really sure of anyway.

That's my rant for today. No baby yet. I'll keep you posted.

Benefits Recieved

No, no baby yet...I've just been a slogger for the past couple of weeks. She'll be here next Friday (I go in to the hospital at 6 am). In the meantime, I'm sleeping and getting all the laundry done (how is it she has so much laundry and isn't even born yet?).

I have exciting news. One of the perks (the only perk?) of being bi-vocational for the past year is that I was eligable for maternity leave. This is a big deal for me. Ben and I are doing well enough financially (as in not having to live paycheck to paycheck) because he gets paid really well and our rent is super cheep. However, I have a line of credit from school that I'm slowly chipping away at, and we like having a bit of savings. Add on a newish car and a baby, and things were going to be a bit tight with me not working. In fact, us getting the car was a real step in faith for me, because I wasn't sure how much I was going to get for mat leave.

Basically, I needed to be recieving about 400 a month for my loan and to put a bit in savings for the baby, plus help with the price of diapers so that ben's paycheck wasn't streched too far. I didn't know if I'd get that much because most of what I worked was part time (under 40 hours).

Well, I checked today, and God has been good to us. I'll be getting just over 600 a month! The unfortunate thing is that it is only for 24 weeks instead of the full 53, but I can live with that, either going back to work part time when Ben's home, or seeing how far we can make things strech. I really want to be a stay at home mom as much as possible, and with my work at the curch (which will be starting again in January) I never planned on working full time anyway. We'll wait and see what happens.

I'm so excited about this, one more way that God is taking car of us and affirming that He wants us here doing what we're doing. Calgary is a VERY expensive place to live, but so far we've been taken care of. God is amazing.

Our New Car!

1997 Saturn, 4 door, white, no rust...so much better than the 1987 2 door pink Honda Civic that's falling apart we were driving 

It has a fin....oooohhhhh 

The interior is like new! 

And the date is....

November 3rd!

I still don't know what time, but I am scheduled for a c-section on Friday, Nov. 3....unless of course she decides to make her entrance a little earlier (not that I would mind that all that much).

Happy Day

This has been a wonderful day. I had a fairly good sleep for most of the night, woke up feeling awake, and there was snow on the trees. It's just beautiful out, light snow, not too cold. I feel very cozy inside, got some cleaning done and had a visit from a friend i rarely see.
I also got our new(ish) car insured, and we'll be getting it registered tonight and picking it up tomarrow.

this is a good day

Baby Update

I had a long day at the Dr.s yesterday.

First, we had our ultrasound. An ultrasound at this stage isn't nearly as exciting as the earlier ones - you can only see one part at a time, so we didn't get any pictures.

While we were waiting for the tech to be ready we amused ourselves by watching my belly wiggle and move on it's own. Hana was getting all comfyfor her nap. Apparently the scan was scheduled at a very inconvenient time for her. She takes after her parents - when she wants to sleep nothing can stop her. During the scan the tech needed to be able to see 3 movements in order to give her the ok. She jiggled my belly and poked at me and got me to change position and everything, but Hana didn't mind, she just kept right on sleeping.

What the tech did figure out was that she is still breech. Somehow she managed to get her feet up from under her and into the picke position, which is why I've been feeling more movement in the middle of my belly, but she didn't flip. She tricked us. The tech also said she's about 5.8 lbs right now - nice healthy size, not too big.

So after the scan I had to go for a non stress test to make sure that she was still active and such. It didn't bother me too much, I knew she'd be waking up soon (it was getting close to my usual nap time which is when the baby usually wakes up....). Ben was a little concerned at first because she wasn't moving when the tech tried to wake her, but we saw the heartbeat so we knew everything was fine. Apparently I've just woken her up enough times that she's learned to ignore it :P

During the non stress test I got to relax in a big laxy boy chair. Not too bad at all if you ask me. Ben and I sat and chatted and I pushed a button every time I felt the baby move, they also had me hooked up to a machine the measured her heart rate and any contractions I might have had (none during the test). After about 10 mintues she woke up and was moving around a lot.

While we were doing the test a Dr. came in and told us the options we had because Hana's breech. She basically said that having an ECV has about a 50% success rate, can be very uncomfortable, and can put the baby in distress which calls for an immediate emergency section. She said if we chose that it would have to be done very soon. I had already reseached it and came to the conclusion that the stress wasn't worth the risk, and hearing her explination confirmed it for me. We decided to not try the ECV and just got with a scheduled section.

Not that I'm a big fan of having a section, I'd just rather have a planned one than an emergency one.

So then we had my appointment with my OB. It was lots of fun, I had my GBS swabs done....yay....
It was a Dr. I hadn't seen before, and she was very nice, but not very gentle lol. We talked about my decision to have a section. She said the baby probably could be turned with no problem, but Ben and I both don't want to risk it.

So, they're going to schedule me for a section somewhere around Nov. 4 (they do it a week before the EDD, but I think they have my date off by a week, so Nov. 4 is my real EDD anyway...). I told the Dr. babies in my family tend to come early so she gave me a copy of my history, just in case. She also said I was measuring at 39 weeks, so I'll be suprised if I make it to November.

So, Hana Rae Perry will be entering the world no later than Nov. 4. In the meantime she could still turn - they'll be checking every week and will check before my section just in case. I have to be very observant of contractions etc. because they don't want me going into labour - if I do they have to stop it or do an emergency section.

I'm still processing the whole thing. Even tho I knew a section was always a possibility (either because of position or size) I was still hoping for a vaginal birth. On the other hand, I don't have to worry about tearing or going over due anymore ;). I don't like the idea of surgery but it is nice to know that I could still deliver vaginally for my next one.

So in a nutshell, I learned my baby is sneeky and likes to sleep, and she'll be born by the 4th, not such a bad day at all :) .

Picture List

I'm putting together a list of family and friends to email pictures to when Hana is born. If you'd like to be on the list, email me @ sperry at thesummit dot ca

Of course, you can always wait an extra day or two until I get them up on my blog

And the belly continues to grow! is it a bad thing when maternity clothes don't fit anymore? 

Can't really tell from the front...except that this shirt used to be loose... 

Random thoughts

- Everyone should be able to nap every day, it's a wonderful thing.

- I read a book yesterday, picked it up and didn't put it down until it was finished.

- I've walked almost every day for the past week or so.

- I saw a kid riding down the street on a unicycle, it made me giggle.

- My house is cleaner than it's been for months.

- I had a baby shower on the weekend and it was wonderful, I feel much loved.

- I've been craving junk food like I've never craved it before.

- Ben and I are looking for a new car.

- This is pretty much as good as I can get my brain to work lately.