Thankful

This coming Sunday at church I'm playing a song that is an old favorite of mine. It is called Thankful by Caedmon's Call. When I look at artists that have inspired me to learn how to play guitar, Caedmon's is one of the top ones. In my desire to worship in spirit and truth as John 4:23 talks about, I have been thinking hard about this song and how thankful I really am.

Yesterday we had our 12 week check-up. It was very quick and pretty uneventful. For this, I am very thankful! The doc came in and listened to our baby's heartbeat through a little microphone and speaker that we could all hear. He said it was at about 174 beats per minute and that as the baby continued to grow this number would decrease. He said that all of Em's labs came back great, and he asked if we had any questions. We really didn't....so we were on our way.

It is crazy that it has been 1 month since our first appointment with the doc. It actually makes me nervous because if the next 6 go by as quickly as this month, this baby will be here before I've even processed what that really means. I've been asking a lot of my friends when it hit them that they were about to be a dad, and it has been different for everyone. Some when they first heard the heartbeat, some when the baby was delivered, some after a few weeks of no sleep. I think I'm a hybrid and each step gets me a little closer. I'm certain though, that I have no expectations as this is just a large unknown for me. I have never been so excited about something unknown in my life. I typically like to know what i'm going into before I get there...if I don't, excitement is not what I feel.

Last night, our normal tuesday night group got together to hang out and listen to a Chandler sermon. It was really good. It was number 10 in the "Path series" which is really a progressive sanctification series. It has been one of my favorite series to date. This particular sermon was the first one back in the path series after he missed several weeks with his cancer treatments. So, he recapped the first 9 sermons from the series, and then preached some out of Romans 6. The text paints this picture of what it looks like to die to sin and live in Christ. I am very thankful that Jesus saved me and that I am dead to sin. Without that, the idea of being a father would terrify me. Being alive in Christ lets me look at this with excitement and anticipation. I'm nervous, but mostly just excited!

Our next appointment is in another month...I'm sure it will be here in no time.

- Austin