Joshua 3:5
Beginning with the Black Friday store rush, each year's Christmas season seems to almost always contain the word 'busy'. This year, 2018, was certainly no exception for me. However, through unexpected and divinely inspired events, the Lord taught me that Christmas is meant to be much more of a time of miracles and wonders than being busy.
As Thanksgiving in late November passed, a busy schedule commenced for my wife and I. The due date of our first child's birth was nearly a month away (December 28th). And since this child was an answer to year's worth of sincere prayers, as detailed in this previous blogpost, we wanted to do everything within our ability to prepare for full success. Anyone who's been through pregnancy knows how much work goes into doctor's appointments and insurance in the last month before delivery. Alongside this, the semester at Yale University was nearing the end. With a graduate-level course on statistical inference, another course on information theory, and being a teaching-fellow for a machine learning course, my workload at the end of the semester was definitely quite large. And then, of course, all of the (truly wonderful and necessary) Christmas traditions began amounting as well.
In the church that I attended, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the many often unspoken responsibilities of each member is helping to clean the local church building once every few months. December 15th turned out to be the week that my wife and I were assigned to help. And since I also served as a clerk for the local congregation in New Haven, I was the one in charge of unlocking the building and reminding the others assigned. When that day arrived it turned out that, due to completely understandable circumstances (some directly related to the Christmas season, and others not), only myself and a friend in the ward named Joe were able to make it. So we set off to accomplish yet another busy aspect of the season by cleaning the whole building as two people.
I was in charge of vacuuming each room of the church. Moving from room to room, nearly three hours of church cleaning was bisected with vacuuming the room used for both early morning seminary and the young men's organization. As I pushed the vacuum into the room, moving chairs and books out of the way progressively, I noticed a familiar scripture posted on the wall:
While I had certainly read and nearly memorized this short scripture previously, over an hour of vacuuming caused me to ponder much deeper upon it this time. What wonders did the Lord have in store that could occur, either symbolically or even literally, tomorrow? And, more importantly, what was I to do to be more "sanctified" for them? I honestly did not know the answer to the former question, but knew at least that one thing I should do is strive to live as worthy of the Lord's priesthood as possible.
Later that very night, at a time not long after midnight, my wife Bethany woke me up informing me of some things that could possibly indicate she would go into labor. However, after calling up the doctor and being told otherwise, we went back to sleep. Then, while attending to the early morning Sunday meetings I had as the clerk in my church the next morning, I got a text from Bethany saying that she was pretty sure she was going into labor. Could this really be the big day, even though the due date was still two weeks away (and I had at least heard that first babies usually arrive late)? Regardless, I quickly went home with the enthusiastic thought that perhaps the scripture I had read while vacuuming could be fulfilled in a much more literal way than I originally thought.
As the morning continued, so did the contractions. Eventually we realized that this was not just pre-labor, but was likely the real deal. After calling up the doctor we decided that it was time to go to the hospital, even though the contractions weren't nearly as unbearable as we'd both suspected them to be by this point. But once we were there, the contractions began escalating and, after analyzing more closely, the nurses told us that this was definitely the real deal.
While in our assigned room, waiting for the nurse, Bethany asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. I of course agreed to do so, now with the undoubtable knowledge that indeed the fulfillment of Joshua 3:5 was taking place very literally. Not knowing beforehand what the Lord would have me say in the blessing, I nevertheless tried my best. While I don't personally remember what was said in the blessing, I do recall finding out later that one of the phrases mentioned was that she would know how to best deal with the pain that would soon come. She afterwards felt inspired to get an epidural. Not long after this, we came to the point where all that was left was for Bethany to push. This, however, turned out to be the most difficult part of the labor process by a large degree. For reasons beyond ours, and the doctors', understanding the head of the baby couldn't make it past the pelvic bone. After two hours of pushing intensely, it was time to let Bethany take a little break and let her muscles regain some strength. While in this break, she again asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. Again doing so to the best of my abilities, I once again could afterwards remember almost nothing said. I later found out that one of the given promises in this second blessing was that no harm would come upon the newborn baby boy. After resuming intense pushing, we again made little progress towards the baby's birth. The doctor, therefore, mentioned that we might want to try an alternative such as a vacuum delivery and/or a C-section. While neither of these were void of great risks, due to the blessing given from the Lord through my hands just previously, Bethany felt comfortable enough to go with a vacuum delivery. And as the intense pushing resumed, now accompanied by intense pulling in a direction that we later found was absolutely necessary yet unable to be provided by the pregnant lady's muscles, the young baby boy was eventually born safely into the mortal world as our son.
Were the first blessing to have not inspired the epidural, Bethany would likely not have been able to endure nearly 6 hours of intense pushing along with the extremely strong contractions. Were the second blessing to have not included the promise that the baby boy would receive no harm, she likely would have felt much more unsettled and scared to try a vacuum delivery. And if these things had not taken place, perhaps our precious son would not have survived. Indeed, the Lord had worked wonders among us the very day after reminding me of the great Old Testament scripture to Joshua. In consequence, the Christmas season changed from being so busy to being so miraculous. The greatest wonder, of course, being entrusted with one of the precious sons of God as a, now-constant, reminder of the Christmas gift of God's only begotten Son.
As Thanksgiving in late November passed, a busy schedule commenced for my wife and I. The due date of our first child's birth was nearly a month away (December 28th). And since this child was an answer to year's worth of sincere prayers, as detailed in this previous blogpost, we wanted to do everything within our ability to prepare for full success. Anyone who's been through pregnancy knows how much work goes into doctor's appointments and insurance in the last month before delivery. Alongside this, the semester at Yale University was nearing the end. With a graduate-level course on statistical inference, another course on information theory, and being a teaching-fellow for a machine learning course, my workload at the end of the semester was definitely quite large. And then, of course, all of the (truly wonderful and necessary) Christmas traditions began amounting as well.
In the church that I attended, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one of the many often unspoken responsibilities of each member is helping to clean the local church building once every few months. December 15th turned out to be the week that my wife and I were assigned to help. And since I also served as a clerk for the local congregation in New Haven, I was the one in charge of unlocking the building and reminding the others assigned. When that day arrived it turned out that, due to completely understandable circumstances (some directly related to the Christmas season, and others not), only myself and a friend in the ward named Joe were able to make it. So we set off to accomplish yet another busy aspect of the season by cleaning the whole building as two people.
I was in charge of vacuuming each room of the church. Moving from room to room, nearly three hours of church cleaning was bisected with vacuuming the room used for both early morning seminary and the young men's organization. As I pushed the vacuum into the room, moving chairs and books out of the way progressively, I noticed a familiar scripture posted on the wall:
"...Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the Lord will do wonders among you." ~ Joshua 3:5
Later that very night, at a time not long after midnight, my wife Bethany woke me up informing me of some things that could possibly indicate she would go into labor. However, after calling up the doctor and being told otherwise, we went back to sleep. Then, while attending to the early morning Sunday meetings I had as the clerk in my church the next morning, I got a text from Bethany saying that she was pretty sure she was going into labor. Could this really be the big day, even though the due date was still two weeks away (and I had at least heard that first babies usually arrive late)? Regardless, I quickly went home with the enthusiastic thought that perhaps the scripture I had read while vacuuming could be fulfilled in a much more literal way than I originally thought.
As the morning continued, so did the contractions. Eventually we realized that this was not just pre-labor, but was likely the real deal. After calling up the doctor we decided that it was time to go to the hospital, even though the contractions weren't nearly as unbearable as we'd both suspected them to be by this point. But once we were there, the contractions began escalating and, after analyzing more closely, the nurses told us that this was definitely the real deal.
While in our assigned room, waiting for the nurse, Bethany asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. I of course agreed to do so, now with the undoubtable knowledge that indeed the fulfillment of Joshua 3:5 was taking place very literally. Not knowing beforehand what the Lord would have me say in the blessing, I nevertheless tried my best. While I don't personally remember what was said in the blessing, I do recall finding out later that one of the phrases mentioned was that she would know how to best deal with the pain that would soon come. She afterwards felt inspired to get an epidural. Not long after this, we came to the point where all that was left was for Bethany to push. This, however, turned out to be the most difficult part of the labor process by a large degree. For reasons beyond ours, and the doctors', understanding the head of the baby couldn't make it past the pelvic bone. After two hours of pushing intensely, it was time to let Bethany take a little break and let her muscles regain some strength. While in this break, she again asked me to give her a priesthood blessing. Again doing so to the best of my abilities, I once again could afterwards remember almost nothing said. I later found out that one of the given promises in this second blessing was that no harm would come upon the newborn baby boy. After resuming intense pushing, we again made little progress towards the baby's birth. The doctor, therefore, mentioned that we might want to try an alternative such as a vacuum delivery and/or a C-section. While neither of these were void of great risks, due to the blessing given from the Lord through my hands just previously, Bethany felt comfortable enough to go with a vacuum delivery. And as the intense pushing resumed, now accompanied by intense pulling in a direction that we later found was absolutely necessary yet unable to be provided by the pregnant lady's muscles, the young baby boy was eventually born safely into the mortal world as our son.
Were the first blessing to have not inspired the epidural, Bethany would likely not have been able to endure nearly 6 hours of intense pushing along with the extremely strong contractions. Were the second blessing to have not included the promise that the baby boy would receive no harm, she likely would have felt much more unsettled and scared to try a vacuum delivery. And if these things had not taken place, perhaps our precious son would not have survived. Indeed, the Lord had worked wonders among us the very day after reminding me of the great Old Testament scripture to Joshua. In consequence, the Christmas season changed from being so busy to being so miraculous. The greatest wonder, of course, being entrusted with one of the precious sons of God as a, now-constant, reminder of the Christmas gift of God's only begotten Son.
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