He's here!

August Jack Ziesel

Born 8/30 at 1:09pm

21in and 8lbs 8oz

Mom and Baby are doing well!  More details to come.

For Fun: Guess Baby Boy's Stats

At 38.5 weeks on 8/17/12

I'm still pregnant. No big surprise there, as I haven't hit my due date (8/28) yet. My doctor sees no reason to induce, for which I am grateful, so we're playing the waiting game.

In the meantime, I thought it might be somewhat fun to play a guessing game. I'd love people to take guesses on birthday, weight, and height, if only to keep me entertained today. Here's what you probably need to know to make an informed decision:

At 21.5 weeks, Baby Boy was measuring at 75% in the weight category. He has not been measured since then.

My due dates range from 8/24-9/1, depending on how they are measured. The earliest ultrasound gave us the 8/28 due date that my doctor and I are going by.

I was 8 lbs 2 oz, 21 inches at birth, but was also the third baby born to my mother. Her first baby was in the high 7 pound range, maybe 7 lb 14 oz or something like that. Now I'm 5'8" and usually around 150 lbs.

Believe it or not, my husband's birth certificate doesn't have his weight information on it, but we've been told that he was over 10 lbs at birth (as were his brother and sister). And he was the first born to his mother. I wish I had his exact height and weight for you, but I don't. Now my husband is 6'2" and usually around 200 lbs. 

My mother says that her first baby was three weeks late, and her second and third babies were also late. Boy, I was excited when I heard that news! :-)

My bump is measuring right on track, and my weight gain has been about 25 pounds. 

I don't feel completely miserable and uncomfortable. The baby has dropped and is preparing for his exit, but that's been the status quo for about two weeks now. 

From what I can tell, Baby Boy seems like he'll be a perfectly normal birth weight, but the longer he stays in there, the bigger he's getting. So, my hopes for a normally-sized child are fading by the day.

Alright, I think that about sums it up. 

Here's how the game is going to work. For each item that we're guessing (birthday, weight, height), I will give 3 points to the people who nail one of the guesses on the head, so one guess could net you a possible 9 points, and then you would be the winner! I will award 2 points for guesses that are one day, 1-2 oz, or up to 1/2 inch off the mark. I will award 1 point for guess that are two days, 3-4 oz, or up to 1 inch off the mark. 

I know this sounds complicated, but I like doing simple math for fun, so I'll enjoy figuring out the winner. 

The winner will receive a yet-to-be-determined awesome prize. 

Because I'm wanting to increase the number of guesses, you can leave a guess as a comment here or as a comment on my Facebook thread with this link (but not both). I know that some people dislike leaving actual blog comments, so I'll concede to the power of Facebook this time.

Ready, set, go!

What is Holiness?

For close to a year now, my concept of holiness has been in flux. I have, for some time, ascribed to something similar to this from Tim Keller and the false binary of love and holiness:

It is absolutely the case that God’s holiness precludes our sin from entering His presence, but it’s not because He’s “intolerant” in any sense that contrasts diametrically with His love. It’s because He’s an all-consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). It’s because sin cannot tolerate the presence of God.

This is a very common Evangelical teaching: God cannot tolerate the presence of sin. We are often taught that God's holiness can be equated to His separateness from sinful things. It's a basic component to the Gospel presentation that many people use: God must eradicate all sin from his presence.

But two big things have me rethinking my concept of God's holiness. The first is the incarnation, which if you believe Jesus to be fully divine, presents a problem because He was certainly in contact with sin. The second is Hosea 11:9, which reads:

I will not execute My fierce anger;

I will not destroy Ephraim again.

For I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst,

And I will not come in wrath.

This verse in Hosea comes on the heels of God calling out Israel's sin; they certainly are not God's good little children at this juncture in the story. While they are still in a state of sin, God is in their midst. (Moreover, this verse challenges the concept that God's wrath requires him to be a God of wrath. In fact, God's holiness seems to be the reason that He isn't coming in wrath. Interesting.)

So, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is there a Scriptural basis for claiming that God cannot be in the presence of sin, or even that God's presence eradicates all sin in its midst? And if God's holiness does not "preclude our sin from entering his presence," then what is holiness?

I do have some thoughts that begin to answer my own questions, but they are not yet completely satisfactory to me, so I'd love to hear from you.