Chapter
17

When we did settle down and agree that the time was right for having kids, it didn’t happen right away. At one point, we were told that we would never be able to have kids. This was devastating to Elna. So much of her upbringing designated her value on her ability to not only have children, but to actually be able to have a male child. So, we began to pursue how WE might help this happen. Elna began to take fertility drugs. We made ovulation charts and scheduled sex like it was a duty to a project. We bought EPT pregnancy tests by the dozens. For a long time, WE had no success.

 

However, God had other plans. I remember a day in June 1993, while I was laying in bed and Elna called for me from the bathroom. She had taken yet another pregnancy test and after 8 years of marriage we always just expected them to be negative. Well, it wasn’t. Although a faint positive showed on the stick, about four more other sticks in a row would confirm that my wife was now a mother. In February 1994, May 1995, December 1999, and February 2001, God would bring life into the world through a beautiful woman that I get to call my wife. Thank you, God. And thank you, Elna.

 

It was awesome. We were going to be parents. But…………. PANIC……………. We were going to be Parents!

 

Elna felt the magnitude of this responsibility first. What were we thinking? How could we do this? Were we up for this? We couldn’t do this. The world was too hard. What did we know about raising a child in this fallen world? I remember Elna saying, “We don’t even belong to a church!” Full blown panic mode had set in.

 

Again, we were Christians, and we knew we were Christians. However, we had never gotten serious about following Jesus. We were just about as lukewarm in our faith as we could have been. “Baptist” was the box we would check off on forms that asked, but we were only in a church building on Christmas Eve and Easter. Now that we had been part of a new life coming into the world, we became fully aware that we were gifted with the privilege of guiding this new person to God as well. The answer seemed simple enough….. we’ll join a church. There was a neighbor down the street that had asked us to go to First Baptist Church Mandeville a few times in the past. We’d go there. Problem solved.

 

We went. Problem not solved.

 

Again, tears rolled out of Elna. We’re doomed as parents. We have no church to help us. We will be sheep led to the slaughter. My response: “Let’s try First Baptist Covington next week. It’s only 5 more minutes from where we live.”

 

Tears gone. Mission set. Problem solved.

 

For the next couple of weeks, we heard some good messages delivered by Waylon, but I didn’t “FEEL” a connection. Each week they would encourage everyone to not only hear Waylon in the service, but to also attend Sunday School the next hour. There was a young couples’ class taught by Waylon’s wife, Martha. We went there. It was really good. Martha was filled with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. She had an amazing God Confidence about her. Martha knew her Bible, and she knew Jesus. Elna and I would come to class each week, but we would not speak a word.

 

Pregnancy was hard. Work was hard. Hormones were hard. Life was hard. Jackson was born on February 28, 1994. Elna and I were now a family of three.

 

Elna and I were so very tired. Niki arrived from England to help us with childcare, but life was just so very tiring. I was in an anesthesia residency at LSU. Elna was working full time as a pharmacist for Eckerd Drugs. She worked every other weekend which meant that if I went to church, I would have to bring Jackson to church by myself. I’m not proud of this, but I decided that it was easier for me to drop him off at the nursery for two and a half hours than it would be to take care of him all by myself at home. Church childcare was my choice.

 

Therefore, I sat in Waylon’s message in big church followed by Sunday School with Martha and her couple’s class. Life was so extremely tiring. In our sleep deprivation and with the stresses of life, Elna and I began to really dislike one another. We were pushing away from each other in big ways. Earlier in our marriage we had gone to a marriage counselor to try to better communicate with each other. The woman was genuinely nice but was always about this exercise or that exercise in order for Elna and I to better understand, feel for, and connect with each other. Blah, Blah, Blah.

 

At that point in my life, I didn’t want to do those things with Elna. I just wanted Elna to be thankful to me for me being so special and for me putting up with her.

 

Obviously, I had my issues.

 

The counseling was headed in one direction. It was divorce.

 

We openly talked through the process of divorce with the counselor. A couple of weeks later we returned to the counselor with news. I think she was expecting us to tell her the date of our separation. Instead, we informed her that we were pregnant with our second child. I remember her saying something like, “Well I see you two are connecting on some level??”

 

Then she said what I do clearly remember. “You have a choice. You can still go through with the end of your marriage, but I want you to know one truth. I don’t see either of you spending the rest of your life alone. Therefore, whatever issues you’ve personally got right now, you will still bring those issues into your next relationship. It’s your choice if you want to handle them now with your spouse, or you handle them later with someone else. However, they aren’t going away.”

 

That was the one single bit of good advice that counselor ever gave us.

 

We went home that day as a family of four. I committed at that time that I would NEVER divorce Elna nor ever leave my family.

 

Therefore, I had to find a way to really do this life. We had exhausted the hippy counselor of all the good advice that she could offer. Where else could I turn? I turned to the Way.

 

John 14:6 New International Version

 

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.