The Blog of Todd Green

We took a tour of the hospital Maternity Ward a few days ago. The more I walked the more my heart sank. Not that I am not excited about having a new baby in our home - I truly am. It has been over eight years since I have been in this place in my life. Actually, back then I was too ignorant to really even notice what was happening. Now, I am older and not so ignorant.

Take a brief look into my brain as walked the halls of a hospital:
Our apartment is too small,
My realtor has not called back.
8 year Flashback: "It's a girl," as the doctor laid a bundle of....ewww....something that resembled a baby on my wife's chest." End flashback.
Pink blankets,
Baby wipes,
Pacifiers,
Strollers,
I really do need to start buying some of these things.
Rock-a-bye baby songs sung in a rocking chair holding a tiny person so gentle, so fragile.
8 year flashback: "Okay Pennie, push. That's it push. Again." What in the world is about to happen? End flashback.
The social worker-tour guide is talking, "This is the room where you will be if you come in and are not ready to start pushing."
More walking.
A dream? No. I have a toothache. This is not a dream.
The social worker-tour guide is talking again, "This is the actual delivery room. The TV doesn't have an off button. You have to flip through all the channels to get to the off channel." The off channel? Wasn't that state-of-the-art back in 1974? How technologically advanced is this place?
Diapers,
more pink stuff,
crying,
baby whimpering,
more bottles,
Do we really have room in our apartment for a baby?
We are having a baby.
Car seats, diaper bags, baby food, breastfeeding.
It will now take two hours to go anywhere!


We are having a baby.

I guess I better start working on a name.

posted by Todd @ 11:43 AM

Yesterday was spent getting in touch with my central nervous system. After a night of pain, I went to the dental clinic yesterday morning. I had a root canal started several months ago. I guess the pain had reappeared due to pretty deep infection in the canal. They had to scrape and clean out the infection. They could only numb so deep. It was extremely painful. For me, it was the worst experience ever in a dentist's chair. I get the root canal completed next month. I can't wait.

I went home with some heavy pain-killers, laid down, woke up an hour or two later and the entire right side of my face around my eye was swollen. I looked like a bad round with Mike Tyson. My family doctor wanted to see me immediately. An infection in my eye. Lovely.

The body is an incredible thing. I remember a great message (preached by an even greater man), "The Gift of Pain." In the message, the minister tells how leprosy affects the human body. The death of nerve endings. The inability to feel pain. The inability to tell if something is burning the skin or tearing the flesh. Pain is a precious gift given to us to protect us. It is given to let us know when something is wrong in our body. When thought of in that context, pain takes on a whole new dimension of meaning. Thank you Brother Cole for that message.

"Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head. I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty!

At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, 'My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.' Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness."
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 The Message

posted by Todd @ 8:54 AM