The Silent Holocron

What can I say? I love my two girls.

The Newell family wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Stephen, Tricia, Grace and Cassie pray for God to draw you nearer to Him in 2010!

This is the email I sent out to my family and close friends just a few minutes ago for our most recent update about our impending birth.

Folks,

We had our next-to-last OB-GYN appointment today at 1. Just got home from that. We were hoping that this time we might have the possibility of a regular birth instead of a C-section, but the news today has all but removed that option – Trey or Cassandra (whichever it is) is transverse. If you don’t know what that means, it means the kid is laying sideways rather than up and down. Also, that means Tricia has not dilated at all. So unless something changes between today and our final appointment next Tuesday, we will almost certainly have a C-section as scheduled Friday August 28.

The tentative plan right now is that I will work that Thursday night and start “paternity leave” that Friday. We will then go into the hospital at 12 noon, do the pre-op stuff, and the kid will be born by 2:00. My mom will be with us (as she was when Grace was born), and I don’t think we know for sure yet what Tricia’s mom is going to do – we will be talking about that this week.

Grace is still not sleeping in her toddler bed – she is either being stubborn or she just isn’t used to it yet. Since the new kid will be in the bassinet in our bedroom for a while, we hope that Grace will finally start using her bed by the time we switch the new one to the crib. She still isn’t sure what’s going on just yet – we have been taking her with us to the doctor and she gets wide eyed and won’t leave my side while the doctor examines Tricia! Hopefully she will realize why we’ve been giving her Tricia’s baby doll to play with and teaching her how to hold it once #2 is born!

If you didn’t already know or have forgotten, these are the names we will be using for the new kid:

Boy: Joseph Stephen Newell III (Trey)

Girl: Cassandra Elaine Newell

Obviously we are keeping the line running with the boys. The girl name is a very old family name. Grandmother (Martha) says it is the first Newell woman we actually have a name for, and she is from the mid-1800s, around the time of the Civil War. I’m sure she can enlighten you on that name a bit more. Elaine is Tricia’s middle name, she wants to pass that on and had already decided she wanted this as a middle name even before she became pregnant with this one.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and good thoughts, they are much needed, even more so now in the wake of Granddaddy’s going home to Jesus. We will be keeping you updated as we get closer. Love you all and may God bless you today!

I am back home in Tennessee today for the funeral of my Granddaddy, Joe Newell. I have several posts in the queue but they will be on hold while we grieve. Til then I thought I’d provide you with a recent pic of my daughter. See how big she’s gettin’! She’s daddy’s big girl!

From J.C. Ryle’s The Duties of Parents:

“A true Christian must be no slave to fashion [meaning worldly custom - Stephen] if he would train his child for heaven. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world; to teach them and instruct them in certain ways, merely because it is usual; to allow them to read books of questionable sort, merely because everybody else reads them; to let them form habits of the day. He must train with an eye to his children’s souls. He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short, the fashion of this world passeth away. He that has trained his children for heaven, rather than for earth, for God, rather than man — he is the parent that will be called wise at last.”

Grace agrees with her daddy on the hysteria over the Twilight books and movie:

This trumps anything I could have said about Tennessee tonight or the election tomorrow:

That’s right! It’s Grace’s first tooth! It will soon make an appearance!

This calls for a round of drinks all around (root beer for you Baptists, Guinness for the Catholics, Anglicans and Presbyterians among my readers) and a full week’s worth of Great Commission Resurgence posts!

Photo Friday is a little early, since I’m off work tomorrow and will be taking in the new Star Wars movie Friday and then going to see Stone Temple Pilots with my dear wife Saturday. So here’s two pics for your weekend enjoyment.

If I ever needed proof that my kid’s a heartbreaker, here’s the proof as captured by my new iPhone (mouse over for a caption):

For your viewing pleasure, here’s a pic of Daddy’s cutie patootie during naptime:

If there is only one thing — other than a saving knowledge of Christ — that I am able to teach my little Grace that sticks til she dies, it would be this:

Once they had all had their say, a minister’s wife looked across the table at me. “Christine, what are your thoughts.”

“You wouldn’t care to know. I’m young and single. What do I know?!”

At this the women in the room turned their attention to me, assuring me that my thoughts mattered.

I began slowly.

“I believe that a man feels most loved when he knows that he is respected.”

I went on to describe how I desired to serve my husband and show him respect to himself, in front of our children, and before others (whether he was present or not). In matters of submission, I imagined the thrill of being able to serve my husband even if the task was small. I longed for the Lord to bring me a mate that I could run along side of as we ran the course God had set before us, cheering him on … quenching his thirst … rejoicing at his/our victories.

I did not qualify my statements by saying that I would only do these things if he proved to be a godly leader and lover. I knew that many of their husbands were not. However, wives are responsible for their own actions and attitudes … not those of their husbands. Scripture does not describe the marriage relationship as “Wives, submit to your husbands when they lead you in godliness.” Instead, 1 Peter 3:1 states, “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives—”

I have sought in my own living to apply King Lemuel’s mother’s advice to her son. She described a godly wife who’s husband is confident in her and her abilitites. She seeks to do him good and not evil all the days of her life. All the days … even before she is married? Indeed. Take God’s inspired Word seriously, ladies. Look at the married women around you. Are they disrespectful? Do they leap at the opportunity to bite off their man’s head? Do they ignore their husbands? Have they grown bored in their marriage? Single women, like myself, this is not your fate. Do what is necessary today to love your future husband. It’s really no different than living the Christian faith. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength … and … love your neighbor as yourself. Being conformed into the likeness and image of Christ, living the gospel daily, and removing selfish pride from your life is essentially the ulitmate preparation to living with and respecting and loving a husband.

Go and read the entire fantastic story here.