Tag Archives: Family

By what Kind of Death will You Glorify God?

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Tombstone Grave Marker: Bye

in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them. — Psalm 139:16

A few weeks ago, a childhood friend died in a car accident on his way to work on a construction project for his church. Just this week, some other friends had a miscarriage. Meanwhile, my great-grandmother just celebrated her 100th birthday. All of them love Jesus, all of them seek to serve and honor him. At times it can seem like there’s no rhyme or reason to such things, but the Bible paints a different picture:

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. — John 11:5-6

[Jesus said,] “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.” — John 11:5-6

Few of us know by what death we will glorify God, but we can be assured of this: everything happens for God’s glory. No matter how tragic, no matter how seemingly untimely, every death brings glory to God in some way. We can catch glimpses of this now, but we may never know the full story until this chapter of life is over. For instance: the couple who miscarried? God is already using them to minister to the people around them. The faith and trust they exhibit as they walk through this trial is strengthening the faith of the believers in their midst. And that’s just this week—only God knows how much fruit will be harvested from this one event.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. — Romans 8:28

It’s enough to make a Christian look forward to the day of his death—the thought that my final act on this earth will bring God glory! What an encouragement! :)

It’s A Busy Week Ahead…

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Yup, we’re prepping for the big Knoxville trip – we’re leaving at the crack of dawn on Friday. But there’s even more in the mix this week: Josh Alves and I are guest-hosting The Freak Accident while Jeremy Zehr is out camping with his family; look for the new episode later this week. And I’m one of five members in The Citizen Squid Project pilot program; I can’t share all the details, but we’re working on making Squidoo better and better!

All about Travis Seitler, by the Wife

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So, the Blogathon starts and the first thing my husband does is head out the door! Why is that? Well, he’s gone to help a friend from church move to a new apartment. Talk about being over-committed! But that’s my man–always willing and eager to lend a hand.

Travis tends to write a lot of posts about theology and comics, but that probably doesn’t give one a full impression of what he’s really like. So, in light of the fact that he’s gone to serve a fellow brother and left me with full access to his blog, I thought I’d write a little bit about the Travis Seitler I know and love.

Stay tuned…

Joshua Felix Seitler, Born July 1st!

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Joshua Felix Seitler

That’s right: it’s new baby time!

Joshua Felix Seitler was born at 4:59am on July 1st! He was 21¾ inches long, weighing 8 lbs. 11.3 oz (big boy!).

We went in on Friday morning for a checkup with Nicole’s midwives, and since she was almost at 41 weeks, they ran a non-stress test. First off, the great news: he was head-down! (This boy’s been breech twice in the past six weeks! We were starting to think a C-section was inevitable…) Anyway, during the test Nicole began having regular contractions… and Joshua wasn’t responding too well to them. Next thing we know, Nicole has a room in Labor and Delivery!

Pitocin was started around 4pm, and progress was a bit slow. I tried to be up to help Nicole however I could, but by 1am I was snoozing on the couch/bed in the windowsill any chance I got. :oops: Around that time, Joshua’s pulse started really dropping during contractions: he was pretty steady at 120-150 bpm, but the number began to drop to 60 after Nicole’s contractions. 8O (The nurses rushed in a few times that night, trying not to look too alarmed but rather quick to stop that!) At this point, the pitocin was cut back to make things easier on Joshua. It worked. :) His pulse began to stabilize! Just after 4am, Nicole began pushing. Just before 5am, she was holding Joshua in her arms!

Nicole holding Joshua Felix Seitler in her arms!

We just got back from the hospital today — with the Independence Day holiday coming up, the pediatrician wanted another day to be able to keep an eye on “Lil’ Shu Shu.” Nicole’s mom is in town this week to help out, too, so you might not hear much from us for a little while. Here’s a movie to hold you off with! ;)

Oh, this guy is so cute! I wanna go watch him sleep some more…

Apartment Maintenance, Birth Impatience and the Death of an Acquaintance

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For some reason, every day this week has felt like Friday.

The condensation pan (or whatever it’s called — you know, the thing the water goes in) for our apartment’s central air conditioning fell down two weeks ago. The maintenance crew came in right away to re-attach it, but there was all sorts of water damage in our closet (Nicole photoblogged this). They came out on Monday to re-paint the wall and install a new shelf, but we noticed more water on Monday night! Looks like the pan didn’t just get dislodged; it’s also heavily corroded on the bottom and leaking. There’s a bucket on the closet shelf now, collecting the water that drips until we remember to call maintenance back out to fix it.

Joshua Felix is really wearing his mom out. (You can come out now, you know!) His due date is the 25th, so I know we’ve still got time… and if he’s anything like his dad (3-and-a-half weeks overdue, thank you!) we’ve got plenty of time! Still, we want him out in the open where we can see him! We’re not the only ones; the boys grandmoms have been calling a lot more this past week or so; you know, “just to check in.” ;)

Jordan e-mailed me yesterday to tell me that a guy we were in Cub Scouts with was killed in a
car crash, leaving behind a 2-year-old daughter. It’s an awful tragedy… but since I remember Joe as the class clown (and he’s the only person I know to be posthumously described as “ornery”), I felt it fitting to rhyme the title of this post in his honor. Here’s to you, “laugh-man.”

Preview: Joshua Felix Seitler

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Joshua Felix: Profile View

There’s my boy! :)

Daddy’s been busy making preparations for the little guy, and Katie has offered her booster seat to her little brother — on the condition that she can sit in a “big chair” at the kitchen table, of course.

Meanwhile, “Shu-shu” (Katie insists on calling him that!) has been happily kicking his mommy for a few weeks now, and Katie and Daddy have written our first song about him:

Little brother Shu-Shu />Crawling ‘cross the ‘partment />Scooping up the dollies />And bopping ‘em on the head!

(Along came the big sister and she said…)

Little brother Shu-Shu />I don’t want to see you />Scooping up my dollies />And bopping ‘em on the head!

I’ll give you three more chances, />And if you don’t behave, />I’ll tell Mommy on you!

The Voice of Your Brother’s Blood is Crying to Me

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I agree with Mr. Arnold: this is vile, ugly, and definitely worthy of the usage of “pissed” in describing how I feel after reading it:

In reading about various topic in bioethics, I came across this rather ominous sounding bit of Orwellian newspeak: “wrongful birth.” It’s kind of like “wrongful death,” but the exact opposite. It points to a rather elaborate counterfactual analysis of circumstances:

If a mother had known that her fetus [unborn baby] was afflicted with some incurable genetic “disease” (i.e., Down’s syndrome, cystic fibrosis, etc.), then she would never have allowed the pregnancy to continue its course and instead would have aborted [murdered in the womb] the fetus [unborn baby].

“Families” have sued doctors for wrongful birth, claiming that doctors should have provided them with information about certain genetic markers that portend to genetic defects or diseases, so that these “families” then could have chosen abortion [murder] rather than carrying the fetus [unborn baby] to term. I say “families” because can you imagine being in such a family? “Gee honey, we didn’t really want you but we got you anyway, so we’re gonna sue Dr. So-and-So for making us take you.”

Anyway, I’m sure there is some real philosophical argumentation to be done here, but I’m too pissed to do any right now. Maybe later.

And to think, these are the people who like to call fundamentalist Christians “nazis”? Sorry, we don’t tend to encourage mass murder… and last time I checked, “infanticide” and “genocide” bore more of a resemblance to each other than did “genocide” and “intolerance”.

I’m sick of selfish idiots.