Little Mr. tries for early release.

On Monday of this week our little guy tried to escape a bit early. At just 32 weeks it was a little early, so after a shot and a double dose of medication, and an overnight stay in Labor & Delivery, we are back home and "taking it easy" for the next 6 weeks and 4 days--IF he waits that long.

Actually, Kaderick seems quite happy where he is and was completely uneffected by all the commotion. It's all that extra fluid that's tricking my body into thinking the time has come.

I don't have a history of pre-term labor and don't go running to the dr over every little twinge, but as it turns out, it was the right decision to make on Monday and a good thing we went when we did.

 

 

Today, at a follow-up apointment, ultrasound and nonstress test, we received all good news. Baby looks healthy and happy--he is a little chunk weighing in it nearly 5 pounds already. He passed his stress test (he doesn't seem to stress easily--maybe that is his daddy coming out in him) and the fluid was down significantly, which is really good news.

 

Needless to say, I am having a hard time nesting from the couch--but I'm trying to get all the last minute odds and ends tied up and everything ready without doing anything. Thankfully, I have a great family, awesome friends, ect who help me out. I make lists and give orders. Smile.

 

Warning: Slightly Political Post

The last several Sunday evenings our pastor (happens to be my wonderful husband) has devoted our Sunday evenings to different types of power point lessons about "America." For example, "How to Pray for our Nation" and this past Sunday a lesson reminding us that no matter what, "God Is."

He recounted the following interesting piece of history and I thought I'd share it with you all. We have also been challenged to fasting and prayer. Not everyone can fast food, but there are many other things to fast--just do without something you enjoy--maybe a certain treat, book or computer time. We Americans are definitely at a critical juncture in the history of our nation. I'm aware that many times in the past, we've thought the end was near, but again we see the signs of the times. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that prayer moves the hand of God--maybe all those times in the past, God gave a space to repent in response to the prayers of His people. Anyway, enough of my rambling, here is the story of Liberal, MO as found on Wickipedia.

In 1880, a group of people in Missouri led by George H. Walser founded a town and named it Liberal. It was located abouted 35 miles north of Joplin. These people were so extremely ‘liberal’ that churches were not to be allowed. In their literature they boasted that it was “the only town of its size in the United States without a priest, a preacher, church, God, Jesus, hell or devil.”

A man named Clark Braden wrote up an account for the Post Dispatch showing that there was little else than hell and devil there, that it was a den of iniquity, that its hotels were brothels and virtue almost unknown. The account was so terrible that they had Braden arrested for criminal libel, and sued him and the Post Dispatch for $25,000 damages.

Liberal was a failure, and even lifelong unbelievers, who had moved there for its advantages, left in disgust. One of them said: “An infidel surrounded by Christians may spout his infidelity and the community may be able to stand it but it will never do to establish a society with infidelity as its basis.”

As news spread about Liberal, Christians came to convert the town. According to an 1896 article in The Kansas City Star, Walser tried to keep them out by posting his followers at the Liberal train station to tell passengers that if they were Christians they were not welcome. They came anyway. Some Christians quietly bought homes and began holding religious services. Walser would interrupt them and even put a stop to it after he proved to a court that the services were being held on properties he still partly owned. The Christians then bought land next to Liberal and moved more than a dozen houses and businesses from Liberal. The last building heading down the road had a sign attached that said: "And the Lord said: Get thee out of Sodom." Walser then built a barbed wire fence to keep them out of Liberal. It was time to fulfill the original aim of the town. Those Christian people went there at God’s call and they left seemingly without results.

But the final chapter of George Walser’s life proves all was not lost. When he died in May 1910, the funeral was held at his home. There were remembrances and music. Then there were excerpts read from a book titled The Life and Teachings of Jesus. It was published in 1909, and the author was Walser. himself. He was, he wrote, a converted infidel. By surviving accounts, he didn't try to push his new beliefs on others. But he did write the book, a remarkable document from someone who once said that Christianity and the Bible were the crude reasoning of primitive man. He had searched for hope during his life through materialism, atheism, agnosticism and spiritualism but had found none. Walser wrote in the book that he had "wandered in the desert of disbelief, waded in the river of doubt, and in the sands of desolation." But near the end of his life he found hope. “Jesus was the son of God,” Walser concluded, “and the Holy Ghost was the infinite spirit of our maker. We should study the chart which Jesus has given us.